


Within Us

by cornsmut



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Sex, Attempted dubcon, Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Body Exploration, Body Horror, But with tentacles, Communication is Sexy, Consentacles, Cunnilingus, Double Penetration, Edging, Eggs, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Femdom, Getting to Know Each Other, Monster Boyfriend, Mutual adoration, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Oviposition, Porn With Plot, Praise Kink, Romance, Sex Pollen, Sex Positive, Slow Burn, Subspace, Tentacles, Teratophilia, Vaginal Fingering, Xenophilia, alien boyfriend, ask to tag, explicit fantisizing, grinding with clothes on, internalized slut shaming, ovipositor hand jobs, pheromones that make you cum harder, tentacle make out, under the influence of aphrodesiac
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:13:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 47,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27669374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cornsmut/pseuds/cornsmut
Summary: Cy stripped to her underclothes in the privacy of her room as the arousal continued to build.  Cupping one breast, she slid her hand down between her legs and got to it. While not explicitly on the company to-pack list, every resource and forum discussing what to bring for a stint with Mira had agreed that sex toys were practically a requirement.  Cy hadn’t listened, she’d never found she needed more than her own clever hands to get off, but just now she found that she wouldn’t have said no to something with a bit more girth.She could probably find several people right here on the Skeld more than happy to help her with that very problem just at the moment.And one of them had. Tentacles.
Relationships: Crewmate/Impostor (Among Us), Cyan/White (Among Us), Impostor (Among Us)/Original Human Character(s)
Comments: 358
Kudos: 886





	1. Random Unexpected Decompression Event

**Author's Note:**

> This work was directly inspired by art from nasty_eels on Twitter and I have referenced these poses with permission. Check 'em out! https://twitter.com/nasty_eels/status/1310726140118462464?s=21
> 
> I wanted to play around with a distinct physical power imbalance that didn't have a clearly defined dom or sub but had tons of communication, exploration and experimentation- stuff I think is sadly underrepresented in the terato community. 
> 
> Special thanks to Gab for the title, to my beloved boyfriend without whose support I'd still be a closeted monsterfucker, and to my vibe checker. And thanks as well to Felix, who doesn't know he named a mass arousal phenomenon in space for me.

“I have a PhD,” Cy murmured to herself. “I have a _PhD_.” She bit her tongue, focused, and hit the switch.

Her timing was off, and all three dials went dark again. Cy swore.

Lime loved bellyaching to her and anyone else who would listen about overqualifications, pay, experience and so forth. “You can’t plow a field with a race horse,” he’d gripe, and RedCap’d smile patiently and tell him to be more thorough picking leaves out of the oxygen filter.

For her part, Cy had no problem being overqualified to hell and back. Sure, the vast majority of this work could have been done by a handyman with a GED. Sure, she’d worked hard all her life and proved herself among the best in her class, worthy of space itself, for the honor of downloading lunch menus in orbit. Sure, most of the time life was predictable, repetitive, and boring.

And sure, there was always someone like Lime there whinging.

But Cy liked this work. A refreshing change from the lofty world of physics and philosophy, just the day-to-day chores of keeping a ship running smooth enough to keep yourself alive. Certainly Cy would have welcomed a few more challenges here and there, but everything she did, however tedious, was critically important. Cy knew her work, and was good at it. Cy made a difference.

Not this, though.

The calibrate distributor could go to fucking hell.

“I have a PhD,” she said again. “I’m an amateur paleontologist, I have the periodic table memorized, Morse code is my second language, and I can crochet sharks. I have a purple belt, I walked myself home with a broken arm, and went llama camping in the wilderness. But I sure can’t hit this ffffucki- _fuck!_

After a few more tries, during which only the taboo of walking away from a task unfinished stopped her throwing up her arms and leaving it for someone else, Cy got it sorted, whooped to herself, and walked with purpose to her next task in Oxygen.

She waved to Orange, who was leaning against the wall with his hands on his hips, spinning cat stories to Purple. Poor newbie, she’d been learning to interrupt the senior crewmate and remind him they both had things they’d best get back to, but was still too polite to walk away when he nodded, agreed, and launched into another anecdote.

“There’s our Cy, star of the academy, takin’ care of all of us,” Orange greeted her, sardonic but warm.

She got to Oxygen and- oh boy.

_White_.

It was standing with its back to her, staring down at a panel. Cy saw it stiffen slightly when she appeared in the doorway, though it couldn’t have heard her, and shouldn’t have been able to see her.

Cy had been noticing a lot of these little tells.

White hadn’t been avoiding her so openly that anyone else had noticed, but it had casually removed itself whenever they ran into each other with no one else around. Given her all the space the ship allowed. Never said a word, never even gave her a nod in passing.

Cy swallowed.

It had been nearly a week of this… tension. This distance. She hadn’t pressed the big red button, and White had avoided direct interaction whenever possible.

After a few seconds she saw White’s shoulders begin to move again, as it worked delicately at the O2 filter. White was infamously slow at getting its chores done, though there was no one better for a spot of heavy lifting.

Orange and Purple were likely still in the hall, just outside. Would likely be there until Black or RedCap came along and ordered them back to work, which meant she had some time.

White continued to slowly, very carefully clean the filter. It had always displayed little confidence in tasks, and now Cy knew why.

She could walk away. Come back when it had gone. Keep up this silent agreement they seemed to have.

“Here,” she said, coming up next to it. God, but it was tall. Hair stood up on the back of Cy’s neck as it turned its visor to her, shoulders stiffening. “Let me show you.”

Clearing an O2 filter was hardly rocket science, but it was important, and worth doing right.

Cy demonstrated. She watched White ape her motion, then, though this wasn’t strictly necessary, she grabbed its hand and guided it.

She felt the strength in that arm and was glad for her suit hiding the gooseflesh that erupted over her own skin.

“Ah, thanks,” White said, in its perfectly normal voice. Cy shouldn’t be surprised. They were always said to be immaculate mimics.

Cy clapped a hand on its arm in a show of easy comradery. “You need help, just ask!” It’s what Blue was always saying to the new crewmates she took under her wing. She walked out of the room a little too quickly, past Orange and Purple on her way to Shields, and, once out of sight, put her hands on her knees and took a few steadying breaths.

Okay. Everything could be okay. Everything could be normal.

IS, Inc. culture was all about gossip. Rumors flew among new hires and old hands; rumors shared and disparaged with equal passion. The crewmates were only made to believe they were maintaining a spaceship, really they were labrats infected with super viruses and being monitored where they couldn’t infect the population of Earth should it get out of hand. Aliens, _impostors,_ could get onto ship, imprint on a crewmate and slaughter whole crews. The food in the cafeteria was made of bugs, or cats, or soilent green.

Impostors were not real, and could not hurt you.

RUD events _were_ real, and missions had failed when entire crews got too horny to do any work done.

RedCap sang show tunes in the shower.

It was kind of suspicious how good Black was at pingpong.

Cy had considered herself above such rumors; work teams got bored and loved messing with newbies everywhere. Many a good man and woman had been seized by their own crewmates and killed over suspicious hysterias, as RedCap was quick to remind them any time they even joked about it here. And you didn’t need to make up some space phenomenon for people getting horny.

Now that one rumor had come true, Cy wasn’t sure where she stood.

Last week had started much like every other she’d spend on a station. The sensation came on gradually; a faint, unexplained arousal she noticed during breakfast. Cy had been bemused, but crossed her legs and finished her meal, looking around for what could possibly be turning her on here in this white-washed room. It stayed with her, and as she walked through the halls it was definitely getting worse. And… were the others acting a little funny, too?

Cy chuckled to herself as she tried to focus on wiring. She hadn’t had a red-hot no-stimulus horny episode like this since puberty.

_RUD_ , she thought, for her own private amusement. _Space pollen. ‘Random unexpected decompression event.’'_ She giggled, imagining everyone taken simultaneously by an overwhelming need to rub one out and running for bunks and storage closets. The idea was looking pretty appealing at the moment.

Pink had been the first to fold, told RedCap he wasn’t feeling well and scurrying back to quarters. Cy was aware, as she stalwortly worked through her chores, of passing fewer and fewer colleagues in the halls; she walked by Black playing pingpong and panting, _panting_ ; snarling with exertion as he swung his racket. Both bathrooms were occupied and stayed that way. Cy tried to ignore the wet heat building in her underclothes until she walked in on Green and Yellow going at it in a storage closet, and decided she was going to have to email her friends from the academy and tell them RUD events were real.

“God,” she whispered to herself. Her nipples were hard, chafing against the inside of her undershirt, and she wished she could wipe her brow. Something in the air? She’d done the O2 filters earlier, maybe…

Cy exhaled, swallowed, and vowed just three more tasks, and she’d let herself find a private spot to take care of this. Maybe just two more. She had reason to believe she’d be forgiven for trashing her efficiency record just this once along with everyone else. Something told her RedCap himself was also… shall we say…. Calibrating his distributer.

Maybe just one more task. She checked the log, what was most important, what couldn’t wait…

The lights went out.

Cy gulped.

Apprehension shivered down her spine. Too many stories about this happening. Okay, okay… no big deal, right? She pawed at her headlamps, turning her head sharply to take in both lengths of hallway. Cy didn’t believe the rumors, but there are some fears drilled into you by enough whispered stories that you just don’t drop your guard entirely. Fine, just a quick bit of electrical maintenance and she could retire to her bunk.

Cy rushed through the dark halls, exertion only exacerbating the desire in her groin. God, if it got any worse it was going to spill over uncomfortable into painful, what _was_ ; this? She turned into Electrical and plowed straight into something solid, hard enough to fall back onto the floor.

“Oh!” Cy yelped, more surprised than hurt. “Sorry, sorry I…”

In the twin beams of her headlights, Cy saw who she’d run into. White was statuesque, towering and pristine. She started to scoot back, the sudden recumbent position encouraging her desire. He moved to stand directly over her.

Something shivered on his chest and belly.

“Wh…”

Something rippled, the fabric of his suit twitching like a poked cat. Like the lips on a dog.

And the lips pulled back.

A seam opened the length of his body, exposing- no one, no human person. She had a view of moving, twisting, visceral matter. A cavern studded in wet ivory teeth, a tangle of tendrils and tentacles and tongues. White’s hands and feet were dividing, opening into taloned paws; the visor cracked open with a gout of steam, long curls of flesh lolling out. The maw yawned, carnal red, and then White was on her like a beast.

She felt the strength in those limbs as they curled around her, dragging her close. Thick dollops of viscous fluid slopped over her and she felt its body heat searing through her suit. Something was groping at her belly, moving lower, lashing at her hip, curling over a thigh.

And God help her if she hadn’t _wanted_ _it_.

“Wh… White,” she breathed as it squeezed her, a tendril at her breast, something hard and sharp opening against her neck.

“Ccccyan,” it answered, guttural, animal, tentacles tumbling out from the helmet to lap at her visor, blinding her. Cy grunted and thrust her pelvis forward, opening her legs; the seeking tentacle reacted, redoubling its efforts; she was too drunk on desire, too desperate for fear.

“Cyan,” it growled. Its fingers were at her hip, at the seam of her suit, probing; she felt its touch, slimy and hot and making her skin sear. “Oh, Cy… _you’re going to be ssssuch a good mother…._ ”

_That_ penetrated.

“Wait,” Cy mumbled, coming back to herself. What the fuck was happening, what was-

” _White_!” She shouted, voice cracking. She tried to pull away, met unyielding strength, and thrashed. “Let me go! White, _stop_!”

“Ssssshh, sssh, Cyan,” it crooned, pulling her closer, caressing her through her suit- oh, _oh_ yes, she wanted-

“ _No_! Get _off_ of me!” She wasn’t strong enough, she was starting to panic; Cy jerked her hips and with all the strength she could muster, slammed her knee up into the sinuous tube that had been reaching for her groin.

White made a noise like a kicked dog. More shock than hurt, and all at once all those twisting appendages were off her, retracting into their cavern.

Cy jackknifed, scuttling back until her shoulder slammed the wall, scrambling upright, gasping.

White- this _thing_ that had been White- was on its knees, the lips of its body parted, tubes and tongues peeping out like loops of entrail, drizzling slime over the floor.

The head cocked, shoulders slumped. The body rose and fell with heaving breaths, saliva dripping from its jaws, spattering the floor. Cy pressed herself into the wall as it raised an enlarged, taloned hand towards her, imploring; a low, guttural sound rattled through it.

“Cyan,” it whined. “Please…”

“Go,” she said, voice thick. “Get out.”

A heavy sigh wracked its way through the creature’s form; White crawled backwards, reaching behind it to pull open the grate of the air vent. With a last, beseeching whine, it disjointed, deforming, and the great mass of White went fluid and slithered into the air duct, slamming it shut.

Knees shaking, Cy staggered to the panel. The wires hadn’t been cut, only the switches flipped; her hand was trembling so much she could barely set them right, smearing the panel with slime. Light flooded through the station.

Cy looked down at herself, whimpering at the sight of goop smeared over her suit. She barely made it to her bunk, delirious with fear and want, violently peeling the suit off and shoving it into laundry. She thought she might be in shock, still gasping, heart still racing…. And- for fuck’s sake- still debilitatingly horny.

Cy collapsed onto her bunk, shoving a hand through her underclothes, and lost the next hour or two lost to a very productive session of schlicking.

RedCap had found her, when his tight-voiced announcement for everyone to get back to work went unanswered.

“I can’t,” Cy called through the door. “I- I’m sick. I’m sorry.”

“Pink already tried that,” Red snapped. “Get a hold of yourself and get your ass out here, Cyan.”

The tremendous pressure in her clit had eased significantly, and Cy was in better control of her faculties.

“Captain, please.”

RedCap hesitated. It was out of character for her to take a day off at all, and there was something in her voice. She waited a few tense seconds before she heard him mutter to himself. “Alright, Cy, twenty minutes.”

Cy hugged her blanket tighter, staring at the air vent.

What the fuck had just happened.

When she did emerge, showered and in a fresh uniform, it was dinner time.

She was looking over her shoulder the whole way to the cafeteria and when she got there, she did a head count. Nine. No White, and where was- fuck, fuck, where was Brown? Wh- oh, okay, okay, there they were, just getting a refill. Okay, but where was…

Cy’s pulse jumped as White entered the cafeteria. He was-

-he was White.

Tall, quiet White, striding leisurely in with the same relaxed sheepishness everyone else seemed to be showing. He slit in with Orange and old Blue, already chatting with the captain.

What. The _fuck_. Had happened?

Had she been so horny she just- hallucinated?

Cy looked around, wild-eyed, at her friends and colleagues.

“Cy?” Pink asked.

What could she do? Everyone here was basking in the aftermath of a RUD, carefully not talking about it.

_White’s an impostor._

“I’m okay,” she mumbled.

_White jumped me in electrical. He’s a monster. His whole body is a mouth full of…_

Impostors were real, and she had to tell everyone before he got someone else. How?

They wouldn’t believe her. They’d think she was joking.

RedCap would give her a formal reprimand for putting White in danger with that kind of talk.

She had goo on her suit, two minutes of lights out, and a RUD event to back her up.

No one was going to believe her.

Cy could barely believe herself.

Cy hadn’t slept the night after the RUD. She left the light on in her room, staring at the vent. The next day she’d been sluggish, edgy, finishing her work quickly and returning to quarters. Some of them had noticed, given her questioning looks, but nobody had actually broached a question, and she wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for that.

What did she know about impostors? Rumors, of course; all rumors. But rumors with some common threads, some generally agreed upon details. They got into ships, replaced a trusted crewmate. They sabotaged systems, threw stations into chaos and let the bloodbath begin. Whispers of whole crews wiped out, whole stations down. Alleged survivors describing the paranoia, the hysteria as they tried desperately to identify the monster among them. People shoved out of airlocks, dropped into lava because they’d been keeping to themselves, or were slow workers, or incompetent.

Like the nerd she was, Cy had taken to research, pouring over online forums and conspiracy sites, trying to learn. It was less than reassuring; no one seemed able to agree on what the impostors actually were, what they wanted. Many were vehemently against the alien angle at all; wasn’t it a thousand times more likely that someone up in those orbiting tin cans just went off his rocker and launched a killing spree?

Cy couldn’t forgive herself for sending yesterday’s suit to laundry; she should have saved it, run a protein test or at the very least bagged a few samples. Her one bit of proof, laundered away because she’d been too out of her mind.

It was White itself that really clinched it for her.

They’d never been that close- nobody was really close to White as far as she’d been able to tell. Yellow and Green liked to call him “the polar bear” for obvious reasons, and because he was always quiet and a little distant. He was a hard worker, never grumbled, always down to help if asked. Happy to trade grunt work for tedious, fiddly tasks. Lime and Orange liked to rope him into their marathon bellyaching since he’d never contradict them. He was the one Purple liked to go to for advice when she was too shy to ask Blue to explain something again.

Had everything truly gone back to normal, Cy may have chalked up her memories to RUD madness. She’d always gotten the impression that White liked her, liked hanging around, liked listening to her go off about paleontology or kung fu movies when nobody else was really paying attention. And now, not that anyone else had noticed, that was gone. Cy hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed his hulking, stoic presence until he began slipping away at the first opportunity any time they ended up in the same room.

It was, to say the least, suspicious.

So Cy began watching White- across the room, reviewing cams. Asking little questions. Noticing things, little ticks, little tells. Nothing that she could have brought to Red, but she knew.

She _knew_.

Now, standing in Shields after helping White with O2, Cy stared at the ceiling and calmed herself.

She wasn’t sure what had compelled her to cross their boundary, speak to White one-on-one. But she knew, and White knew that she knew, and she hadn’t gotten it thrown out an airlock, and it hadn’t come through an air vent and broken her neck.

For the time being, at least, it seemed they had a truce.


	2. And One of Them Had Tentacles, Oh God One of Them Had Tentacles

Cy finished inoculating her last plate, scribbled a label in shorthand, and got the batch into the incubator. She stretched, rolling her neck; lab work was terrible for one’s posture.

Across the lab Pink was still working. He was much younger than your typical Mira hire, getting work experience in before going for his PhD, and must have shown promise to bypass the usual requirements. The crew tended to treat him like a kid, but seeing the zen state he took on in the lab reassured anyone who doubted his right to be here.

Cy swung by the cafeteria for a late brunch of cinnamon-nutmeg proteinacious goodness, shot the breeze with Orange for a bit, and then slipped off to see if Yellow and Green needed any help with their chores when Lime turned up and started talking about his family.

It was Brown’s day off, and they were happy to invite Cy to join them for a few rounds of _Big Farma._. Brown’s room never failed to make her laugh, as every flat surface had been conquered by scantily-clad anime figurines. Brown enjoyed some fame as a streamer, one of the elite and coveted gamers _in space,_ and loved bringing guest astronauts onto their channel. They went easy on Cy, letting her get a few scores in before thoroughly trouncing everyone involved, and signed off for the day.

“Brown, you’re a big nerd, right?” Cy said, as they cracked open post-game drinks.

Brown made eye contact with all their anime girls. “Shit. Who told you?”

“Do you believe in aliens?”

“I wouldn’t be a very good scientist if I said no, would I?” they took a swig. “You mean impostors?”  
“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” Brown stroked the head of a particularly thorny beast figurine. “I really don’t know.”

“Seems like you couldn’t keep something like that a secret.”

“Yeah, that,” Brown agreed. “But, Mira’s got us all under its thumb and people have still insisted they saw something. I don’t think we can rule it out either way, honestly.”

Cy swirled her drink. “What would you do if you met one?”

“Get him to play _Call of Krampus_ on my channel.”

She scoffed. “No, I mean-”

“I mean it!” Brown said. “Just _imagine_ the pageviews.”

Cy laughed and tried to think of how to phrase this. “Okay, but just, hypothetically, if you did see an impostor on the Skeld.”

Brown looked at her sidelong.

“Imagine you definitely saw one, but you didn’t have any proof. There’s nothing you _could_ do, right? Why even say anything?”

“I’d probably run like hell and call a meeting. Safety in numbers.”

“Here, though? You’d tell everyone in front of RedCap?”

“Oh my God, you think RedCap is an impostor? Oh no. That explains so much!”

“Brown.”

“Okay okay. Hmm...maybe. I guess it’d depend on who it was? I couldn’t bring myself to get Blue airlocked even if she was chewing on my insides. Or Purple. And Green and Yellow are OTP, wouldn’t want to ruin a match made in heaven. Lime, though… oh, please tell me you can prove it’s Lime.”

“That’s the whole thing! You see one, but you can’t prove anything.”

Brown nodded sagely. “You did well coming to me, Cy,” they said soberly.

“Eh?”

“Meet me in medbay after this next round and I’ll write you a prescription.”

She gave them a playful shove, but it was mostly to cover her anxiety.

Brown was a friend, and a hell of a medical officer. Cy knew they wouldn’t be so flippant and careless if she’d been more transparent, but the reaction did nothing to reassure her that going to her crewmates was the right idea.

There was only one other person she could talk to.

She found it in Storage a few minutes later, lifting crates and rearranging them like they were feather pillows. “Oh, hey, Cy,” it said, as if everything was normal.

“Need any help?”

“I’ve got this.”

It moved a few more, shoulders rippling. When she hung around it asked, casually, “Anything I can help you with, doc?”

“Yeah.” She licked her lips behind her visor, glanced into the empty hall behind them, and moved a little closer. “Are we going to talk about it?”

“...Ah.” White put down the crate and hesitated, fingers wiggling. It seemed to be wrestling with something, and finally turned to face her. “I suppose we ought to.”

It waited, and Cy tried to think of how to start. “Did… um. Hmm.” She didn’t know how to start. “Are all of you so big and strong?”

White gave a soft laugh. It looked past her to the empty hallway, and lowered its voice. “No. Strong, yes. But I’m one of the bigger ones.”

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d held, tension easing in her shoulders. It had been a few weeks since- since _that_ \- and this was the first verbal confirmation she’d gotten. She wasn’t bonkers. It had happened. “Why are you here?”

White placed its normal, talon-less, human hands on a stack of crates. “Maybe we should pretend nothing happened, Cy. I’m not proud of that.”

“I don’t really think that’s an option.”

It didn’t answer. 

She gave it a taught smile. “Scientist, remember?”

“Right.” It put a hand over its visor. “I fucked up. I made a bad decision and I did something I shouldn’t have. For what it’s worth, Cy, I’m… real, real sorry. I’m not usually like that.”

“Well…. I guess all of us were a little… er… under the influence.”

White studied its hands.

“And you were just… waiting for someone to come to lights?”

It hesitated. “Yeah.”

“And you were going to…?”

White didn’t answer. 

“White?” an edge crept into her voice. It was hard to connect the slavering abomination she’d seen in Electric to the kind, courteous man she was talking to now, but she wasn’t letting it off the hook that easy.

White’s shoulders slumped. “I wouldn’t have hurt you. I wasn’t acting right. But please believe me when I say I wouldn’t have hurt you.” Its hands curled into fists. “When… when things are _like that_ , I’m not… you know what I’m like. Normally.”

Cy mulled that over. It had a point; she’d been there, she knew it had been a little hard to behave properly during the RUD.

“Can I ask you something?” White asked, when she kept quiet.

“Yes?”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?”

Cy swallowed, fear spiking in her gut. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

White waited. She didn’t elaborate, and it nodded slowly. “It has been… a tremendous favor to me, that you and… whoever you may have told... haven’t told anyone else. For what that’s worth.”

She sighed. Was she keeping quiet as a favor to White? Kind of, actually. Before that day, and ever since, even now that she knew White was… well. He was a crewmate. She couldn’t do that to a crewmate.

The fear she always felt in his presence kicked up a notch or two. The fact that White hadn’t literally murdered her was a pretty low bar as far as trust went, but it was a factor in her silence. “I don’t think you need to worry about me… letting that out.”

“I know things can’t be exactly as they were,” White said. “I won’t fuck with you by pretending otherwise. But everyone on this ship is safe from me. As much as you would like to let things go back to normal, or not, please believe me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

It felt like the truth. Maybe White was just waiting, biding time until a more opportune moment to spring. But it did feel like the truth, lined up with what she knew.

And whatever White had been hoping to do, it had stopped when she’d kicked it and told it to leave.

That was… 

Again. That was a low fucking bar.

But it was something.

A month had passed since the conversation in Storage, and things really did seem to be getting back to normal, when she looked into the shake she was drinking and realized she was getting turned on.

“Fuck,” muttered Black, a few seats down.

Purple got up and left.

This time, likely encouraged by RedCap’s lack of retribution for the first incident’s shirking, the crew didn’t even try to keep up appearances. Cy remained in the cafeteria, getting herself good and hydrated, checking the task log to make sure that at the very least they weren’t expecting anything really vital to glitch.

She watched Orange finish his shake and walk quickly from the room with short, mincing steps. 

RedCap cleared his throat. “I’ve got some business to attend to, I expect everything to be shipshape by this evening,” he growled, and disappeared. 

Cy dropped her cup in the sink and went to Oxygen. It had to be something in the air, but no difference she was able to detect. She made sure everything was running smoothly and made her way to quarters. Walking past her crewmates’ rooms, she thought if this was a normal occurrence then Mira. ought to have invested in some sound proofing.

Cy stripped to her underclothes in the close privacy of her room as the arousal continued to build. Cupping one breast, she slid her hand down between her legs and got to it. While not explicitly on the company to-pack list, every resource and forum discussing what to bring for a stint with Mira had agreed that sex toys were practically a requirement. Cy hadn’t listened, she’d never found she needed more than her own clever hands to get off, but just now she found that she wouldn’t have said no to something with a bit more girth. 

She could probably find several people right here on the Skeld more than happy to help her with that very problem just at the moment.

And one of them had. Tentacles.

Cy stopped touching herself. The image that had sprung fully formed and unbidden to her mind had sent a twinge of excitement through her pelvis.

Cy pursed her lips, drew in a steadying breath, tried to force down the arousal clouding her judgment. It wasn’t as if she’d never masturbated to a tentacle fantasy. She slid two fingers back inside, began to flick against her walls, closed her eyes, and let herself imagine.

Some quality time and a cold shower later, Cy suited back up and poked her head into the hall.  
There was no answer when she knocked on the door to its quarters. Cy searched the ship, coming across Black doing a protein assay in and Purple moping in admin.

“I’d like some space, please,” Purple declared in her typical blunt, bright tone of voice, not turning to see who it was.

Cy tried its room again, and then, against her better judgment, found her way to the back corner of electrical. 

She stared at the switchboard, rubbing her thighs together and thinking about the last time she’d been in here. 

“...White?” she called. Too soft, she barely heard her own voice. God, what was she doing? Cy hugged herself, looking down at the air vent. She could imagine tendrils unfolding from between the slats, talons reaching, a shoulder disjointing to push through the space….

“Cy.”

Cy nearly jumped out of her skin, hitting her back on the wall as she spun.

No jointed legs, no fangled flesh, no tentacles. Just a great, big man in a white space suit. It was filling the passage, half crouched with the fingertips of one hand on the ground, looking up at her, blocking her in.

“You came to me,” White said. Its voice was raw, and was coming from somewhere in the chest. There was a terrible eagerness in its tone.

“I want to talk in the hall,” Cy said sharply.  
The creature stiffened, shoulders slumping in disappointment, but it stood up and gestured for her to lead the way.

“You first,” she snapped.

White obliged.

The open hallway to either side made her feel a little better, but she still wondered what the fuck she was doing.

 _You’re safe from me,_ it had said. 

“Um. Walk with me?” Cy said, starting to move. It let her lead the way, hovering just out of arm’s reach. They passed through the lower engine in silence, and Cy stopped and faced it in the hall outside.

White looked up into security camera, then turned its attention to Cy.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she said. 

“You’re aroused,” White murmured. She saw the skin over its midsection twitch. “I could help you…”

“No.”

“Cy, please,” it whispered. “You’ll enjoy it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

White didn’t answer.

“That’s it, isn’t it? RUDs are- they’re you.” She squeezed her hands into fists. “It’s an impostor thing. You’ve got… what, pheromones? And you get into the oxygen and make the whole crew like this?”

“...Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s not… not something I’m doing on purpose.” His voice was strained. “But it is part of my- our- biology, yes.”

Cy put a hand to her visor and barked out a mirthless laugh. “So this is just… how it is? Every couple of months you’re going to, what, go into heat?”

White sighed. “They’re not usually this intense.”

“Yeah, you said that.” She swallowed. “And you’re going to try to…”

White let out a breath that sounded a lot like a hiss, and made Cy flinch.

“No,” it said. Its head twisted- a little more than it should have been able to, had the helmet not been organic, and White rolled its shoulder, putting a hand over its stomach, squeezing the faux fabric together. “I let it get to me and I made a mistake. I can’t control… _this_ ,” it gestured through the air, “but I can control myself, and that is not going to happen again.” White leaned back, running the pad of its thumb over its fingertips. 

Cy exhaled. “Okay. God. Okay.”

“You don’t have to be afraid,” White said. “...But…”

“...Yeah?”

“While you’re here… while…” White turned to face her, standing up taller, leaning forward a hand beginning to rise, and it made a sound that might have been a sigh, had sighs been produced from rubbing ice chips together. It shook its head. “Let’s- not talk anymore.”

“Yeah, okay,” she squeaked. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Cy…” it hissed. “I didn’t want… only wanted…” It emitted another of those grating sounds, and walked away.

Cy slumped into the wall, holding a hand over her heart.


	3. Just a Different Kind of Crewmate

Cy was back online, seeking answers. She retrieved the security footage, watching and re-watching the silent, poor res recording of two people in space suits having a chat. With its back to the camera, there was nothing to see- White just looked like he was having a headache, and she looked like – well like everyone else did during a RUD. She found other vids of White on the ship, walking around, doing its job. Looked up the episode of Brown’s stream where White and Red had guest starred for some digitized card game. Nothing blatantly alien.

Cy leaned forward, steepling her fingers. Going to find White had been an incredible and entirely unwarranted risk. It didn’t matter that they’d been alone together in the previous weeks, or that he’d had ample chance to try something; walking right into a secluded room _during_ one of the events that made it act like a monster had been an incalculably stupid thing to do. 

So why had she?

She chewed on her tongue, staring at a blog post in which someone with no background in drawing had posted eyewitnesses sketches of his supposed impostor sighting. A suited figure was unhinged at the waist and a single, sharpened projectile protruded out of the cavity, spearing a second figure through the visor.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” grumbled Cy.

She went to find White.

White opened the door to its quarters on her second knock. “Cy,” it said.

“Hey, White. Can I come in?”

White looked into the hall past her. “Is something wrong?”

“I want to know more.”

White didn’t move. It started to shake its head.

“I think I have the right to know,” Cy said. Alarm bells went off in the back of her head, but she stepped closer. “Please.”

White sighed and made space for her to enter its quarters.

Its room was nothing notable, had she not been already looking for clues. It was spartan, but not sterile. There was a picture of crewmates on the wall, White standing tall besides RedCap and Blue with others she didn’t recognize. A poster of a beach. A little plastic figurine with a handwritten note that said _‘Good game!’_

The sort of décor one might display if they didn’t know what décor was for, but had had people give them some things. Maybe that wasn’t fair. Cy knew enough single physicists to know interior design didn’t prove humanity.

White pulled out its desk chair for her, and sat on the edge of its bunk.

Cy sat.

“So…” White said.

“I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t, and I don’t know enough to really start so… can you… give me the basics?”

“About me?”

“About impostors. And you, yeah.”

“Hmm.” White looked at its single framed photograph. “I’m an alien.”

Cy smiled. “I got that far.”

“Maybe you should tell me what you’ve heard, and we can work from there.”

“Oh, okay. Umm… okay, so, most popular story is, impostors can change their appearance, they infiltrate ships and stations, hide among the crew, break things and kill everyone leaving no survivors.” Cy scratched the back of her neck. Kind of hard to say that with a straight face to the gentle man sitting across from her.

“All true,” it said.

Cy blinked. “Oh. Uh. Why?”

“Don’t know why,” White said. “Keep ships out of some places, disrupt research on certain things, maybe. You don’t need to know what someone did wrong to go and get them.”

“Uh… and… then what?”

“If you’re successful, you go to the next ship and try it again.”

“You’re… you sound very casual about all this.”

“It’s a high risk job,” White said. “Very few of us survive the first assignment. Humans won’t see the signs right in front of them unless you give them a reason to look, but once you’ve done that, they can usually figure it out fast enough.”

“’Usually’?”

“I’m still alive.”

“Aaaaah. Okay. Oh… okay, uh…”

“I’m not a threat to you, Cy.” 

“But you- you…?”

White shrugged. “A long time ago.”

“And you stopped because…”

“Given the choice, I’ve found being one of the crewmates is much more relaxed and enjoyable than being an impostor.”

Cy gave it a questioning look.

“I didn’t know who had sent me, or why. I don’t know what Mira wants, either. But I do know that neither of them care about me. So I stay here.” White flexed an arm. “Move boxes. Eat protein. Show up to movie night. It’s not exciting, but I think you understand the appeal of simple, meaningful work for the good of the group.”

She mulled that over, aware as she did so that this was something she’d need a while to process. “Can you tell me more about your biology?”

“You saw some of it.”

“Do you have organs?”

“Yes, of course I do. They’re behind all the other things.

“So when you drink shakes with us are you actually eating?”

“Yes.”

“You got a mouth under there?”

White touched its right side. “I have a pharynx for feeding. It attaches here, but I can slide it up under my visor.”

“’Pharynx’? Like, uh, like fin- no that’s phalanx…”

“A feeding tube,” White said. “With bitey parts.”

“Oh. Yes, I think I did see that.” She looked White up and down. “What else do you have?”

“I can have just about whatever I want,” it replied. “But I can’t change my pharynx, some vitals, my lance, or my genitals.”

“Lance?”

“Stabby bit.”

“So… ‘feed, fight, fuck’ is permanent?” 

“Heh. Yes.”

It really was remarkable how closely White could replicate fabric and glass, Cy thought. “May I ask what you look like normally?”

“Heh. This _is_ what I look like normally.” He gestured grandly to his face and chest.

“You don’t have to ‘keep it together’ or anything?”

“No. Once I build something, it’s stable until I break it down.”

Cy visibly perked up at that. “Oh. What if you weren’t trying to mimic anyone? What would you look like?”

White considered. “Like whatever structures I’d most recently found useful to whatever I was doing.”

She considered. “I’m picturing a… like a spiky octopus-starfish thing.”

White chuckled. “That sounds about right.”

“Do you still have the… all the stuff I saw before? Inside your body? Are you hollow?”

“Mm. I’ve got some space in my chest and abdomen where I keep structures in case I need them.” He smiled. “I was told on my first job, ‘don’t ever get caught without the bare minimum of what you’ll need.’ It’s been a good long while since I’ ve needed any of it, but I like to know it’s all there.”

“Do you think you could show me?”

White shook its head. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“Oh.” She blinked, taken aback by a shock of disappointment. “I mean… if you’re not going to jump on me again, I don’t think it could possibly be scarier than seeing you in the dark standing on top of me.”

White shifted uncomfortably at the reminder. “Fair enough. But you asked for it.”

A seam in the ‘fabric’ over White’s side came undone, pulling apart like a bit of lunch meat. The flap pulled back and she saw the interior- hooked, ivory teeth in a bed of soft pink. The gash lengthened; she could see the spiked joints of an armored leg, the fleshy curve of something moving aside to make room.

“Oh.”

Two wet, rosy-tipped tentacles appeared at the lip of the seam, slithering out to pool on White’s thigh. They were tapered, the undersides studded in lumps like the foot of a snail. One lifted up, arching lazily at Cy, and she raised a hand in response without thinking.

“May I touch them?” She asked.

“If you’d like to…”

The tentacle bent towards her and Cy caught it, leaning in close. It was soft and malleable in her hand, though she hadn’t forgotten the strength they were capable of.

Cy gave it a gentle squeeze. “Are they sensitive?”

“Not especially.”

“How long is it?”

In answer, more tentacle emerged from White’s side; it had to be over a meter.

“How dexterous are they?”

The tip of the tentacle elongated into a narrow projection that wove itself through her fingers.

“Not as dextrous as a human hand, but close,” it answered.

“Wow. How many do you have?”

“Currently? Seven. I can have as many as I want.”

“You mentioned a feeding tube?”

“Hah! Ever the scientist.” It cocked its head, the seam running further up its side.

“God. That looks like it _hurts._ ”

“Nah.” A bow of flesh shoved out of the gap, looking like an elbow or the bend in a gut. It continued to emerge until, with a wet slap, something thick and heavy flacked down on White’s leg. 

Cy leaned forward instinctively; it flipped around, skin peeling back, and showed a double set of pincers like the face of a giant centipede. They stretched open, the whole thing jerking like an animal, and snapped shut in the air between them.

“Ah,” Cy sat up, startled.

“Afraid _now?_ ” White said. It didn’t sound worried; if anything it sounded smug.

Cy had already reached towards it, finger extended. The open jaws tracked her hand.

“Don’t bite me.”

The finger-like mandibles closed.

Cy gave it a bap. It was much more solid than the tentacle. “You said you can’t change this one?”

“No.” I can make it a little longer and thinner, but that’s one of my permanent featur- Cy!”

Cy had caught the end of the pharynx in both hands and jammed her thumbs between the mandibles, prying them open to peer down the gullet. “Oh,” she said, releasing it. “Carried away, sorry…”

White stared at her a long moment, then shook its head. It started to laugh.

“What? Oh. Shit. Was that vulgar?”

“You’re… you’re a special one, Cy.” The extended tentacle, which had dropped to the floor when she released it, hooked around her ankle. 

Cy considered it, and realized she was smiling. She looked back up. “And your ‘lance’?”

“Ah. That, I’m _not_ going to show you.” 

“Wh… oh. Uh…”

“Lances are for killing, and I’m happy to say I’ve kept mine put away for a very long time.” His tone lightened. “If you want to see my dick again for some reason, I can show you that.”

Cy choked. “Jesus Christ, that really was your dick?”

“Ovipositor. But yes, that’s the part of me I usually fuck with.”

Cy bit her tongue. Neither of them spoke for a minute.

White started to say something, but was cut off by Cy: “Actually, if it wouldn’t be too weird… I _would_ like to see that.”

It sat up straighter in surprise. It hesitated, retracting the tentacles and pharynx. 

“Just cause… I mean, I’ve already seen it.” And felt it. “And I’d like to know what…”

“Right…”

“Just what…”

“Yes, of course...”

She heard White hold its breath, and then the skin over its pelvis parted into two flaps. 

These, too, were coated in teeth; unlike the unremarkable edges of the previous gash they seemed to be lined in interlocking fangs almost like a zipper. They opened, exposing to Cy’s gaze not a long, sinewy tube, as she’d expected, but a short protrustion of tissue, and below that, the dark entrance to an orifice.

“Ta-da,” White said sardonically. It gestured to the underwhelming sight of its anatomy. 

Cy frowned, eyes flicking up and down. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“Ha! I’m sorry to inform you that ovipositors are out of season at the moment.” When her brows knit it laughed. “Let me preface by apologizing, once again, for my behavior last time you saw this. I wasn’t lying when I told you I’m not normally like that. Between cycles, my kind is functionally asexual.”

“You… I thought you said you don’t change the…”

“Oh, it’s there,” White assured her. “Just retracted.” Its hand moved to hover over the area. “Miss Cyan, are you soliciting a dick pic?”

Cy choked. “Ffff-! Yes. If it’s okay with you? Only if it’s okay with you.”

“As you wish.” It took the head of the ovipositor in its fingers and drew the length of it out… and out.

“Crucified Christ,” remarked Cy, philosophically. “That’s as long as my arm.”

The organ was a pale, organic pink, fluted down the length, and textured at the end by clusters of short protrusions. The tip, lying across White’s open palm, was enclosed by a cone of finger-like projections; the underside was flanged by a lacy, soft-looking ridge. 

“This is where the eggs come from,” White said. It sounded a little self conscious, now the fluorescent lights were clearly illuminating its length. “And.. this is where they go.” It pulled the member aside, showing the opening below. Everything else was a respectable, neutral flesh color, but even while ‘asexual,’ as White had described, what she could see of the sex canal was flushed. Below it were curled-up tendrils to either side, relaxed and asymmetrical. 

Cy very nearly asked to touch the structures before remembering what they were. Now that’d be a faux pas. She folded her hands in her lap. “Where they… are you- are impostors hermaphroditic?”

It nodded.

“What do you mean by being asexual now?”

“Asexual like the orientation, not the biological reproduction strategy. In anestrus, I’ve still got all my body parts, but I’m not interested in sex. It’s only during heat that I get… well. You saw how I can get.” The ovipositor slid back inside, leaving a bit of slick on White’s palm, which it wiped away. “A lot more blood circulating down there and…”

“And horny?”

“Yes. Very, very, painfully horny.” It put a hand over its visor.

Before it had the chance to apologize, Cy mused, “I was pretty horny myself, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah. If its worth anything, I do fervently wish I was better able to control my ability to make everyone on the entire ship deal with my cycles. Kind of difficult to contain when we’re all breathing the same canned oxygen.”

“Do your pheromones turn you on?”

“I’m already turned on when I start producing them, they make it worse. It’s _meant_ to draw in any impostors in the area who are interested in mating, so the one with mature eggs has options. Which means it’s got some range to it.”

“Options,” Cy repeated. “So not just orgies.”

“Orgies also happen.”

“Oh!”

“And, it would seem, works just as potently on humans as impostors.” White balled up its fists. “Keep in mind that every adult impostor I’ve ever met has spent most of its time looking perfectly human.”

“Oh no,” Cy said, trying to suppress a grin. “Poor big strong White, surrounded by all these attractive people of not one, but _two_ species.”

White laughed openly at the teasing. “Nah. Just you.”

Cy stopped smiling.  
“You didn’t think monthly work-derailing RUD events were just a normal occurrence for the last few years, did you?”

Cy’s gaze dropped to the tentacle hooked around her boot. 

“Like I said, the pheromones are meant to bring you options. And… God, this is so embarrassing. They’re not under voluntary control, but they usually aren’t as powerful if you’ve just got some eggs to unload, unless.”

She waited.

“Unless you’ve found someone you… are particularly interested in… Mm. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Ssssso… when you said you were just… waiting for whoever came to fix the lights…”

“I was lying, yeah.”

“You knew it would be me.”

“Nobody has a work ethic like you.”

“And when you told me I would… I was… going to be a good, a good mm…”

White reeled in its tentacle, seams shoving shut. “God, I’m sorry I said that. That was so _fucking creepy_ , I’m so sorry.”

“You were going to…”

“Nnn.”

“You wanted to lay e-eggs in me?”

White covered its visor with both hands. It looked at her, and looked at the floor. “I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“Are you telling me that you… went into super-heat, causing the RUD, and set a trap for me, because you… because I’m…”

“An ideal partner.”

“Wow.”

“Fuck.”

“ _Wow._ ”

“I’m sorry.”

“Uh… okay. Umm. Hmm.” Cy swallowed, feeling lightheaded. “Uh… what… phew… okay, what… Just would that have done to me?”

“Nothing,” White said emphatically. 

Cy’s disbelief was apparent.

“Unfertilized eggs don’t stick around. You would have passed them in a day or two.”

Cy exhaled. 

“Unless you’ve got a womb full of impostor spunk you’d like to tell me about.”

She laughed more from stress than amusement. “No. Not that I’m aware of.” Cy hugged herself, thinking. 

White let her sit in silence for a minute or two, and finally she looked back at him. “You make it sound like eggs get fertilized by being in the uh… womb.”

“That’s how it works for us.”

Cy thought. “You said I’d be… a mother,” she said slowly. “But I couldn’t have gotten pregnant?”

“No, no. Uhm. It’s really exciting to thing about breeding with someone when you’re in that state, even if you’re not… even if you know no reproduction will actually happen.” White clasped its hands, looking chastened. “That was some astonishingly badly worded dirty talk on my part.”

“How big are they?”

“Sorry?”

“Your eggs.”

“Uhhh…” White held its thumb and index finger a few inches apart. 

Cy squirmed.

“I imagine this is disturbing to think about,” White said, putting its hand down. “Just… try to remember I’m the same person you’ve known the whole time you’ve been here. I’m not going to do anything weird to you or any of the others. I’m your crewmate. Just a different kind of crewmate.”


	4. Human Behavioral Ticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't expecting anywhere near this level of attention when I sat down to write Among Us porn. All of your support has been overwhelming and I can't express how much it means to me there's an audience for the kind of thing I've always wanted to write. 
> 
> Stay thirsty, my friends.

Things hadn’t gone back to normal.   
Previously, Cy enjoyed White’s company, and had no reason not to trust him.

Now Cy was finding it increasingly intolerable to go a day without spending time with White.

She’d always appreciated White’s willingness to listen to her monologue about whatever new interest had caught her passion, but White was a known good listener. She’d assumed it was only humoring her. But as she waxed poetic on the inaccurate depictions of longisquama White had asked her, shyly, if she knew of a documentary on it. She didn’t, but found something similar, and within the week they’d begun to end most work days watching videos together on her tablet. 

Cy was learning that White had educated itself on a quantity of very popular movies and TV series, but hadn’t been in the habit of searching for content it liked just for itself, until Cy’s excitement had turned it onto a topic. 

“Your interests are infectious,” it had said.

Cy, who often worried she was irritating in the throes of her interests, smiled and pulled up her favorite episode of _Kōtakunoaru Kyōryū_ to cover her feelings.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Cy said, as they settled in to look for something to watch. “You used a lot of anatomical terms when you were telling me about yourself. Is there a… impostor doctor making textbooks I can talk to?”

“Heh. No.” Cy passed her a juice pouch. “Surviving with humans requires understanding what they consider ‘normal.’ It’s not enough to not hurt anybody, I knew I wasn’t going to be safe living like this if I didn’t learn everything I could about what scared or worried people, so I could avoid it.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“I’m almost too big,” it said. “I didn’t like being visibly distinct but sometimes it’s better to have one obvious oddity.” White smiled to itself- a movement in the shoulders and neck Cy was coming to recognize as contentedness. “New crewmates always expect me to be a lot more macho, given my size. Being able to subvert that expectation puts people at ease with me. Usually.”

“Usually?”

“Some people have tried to start something with me.”

Cy grinned. “Oh no. What did you do to them?”

White chuckled. “Nothing entertaining. I’m not the easiest to provoke.”

“But you _could_ have…?”

“Of course I could. _I_ don’t have anything to prove. Anyway, people can get used to a tall man. Routines and habits were the first thing I worked on; it’s not enough to get my work done and hide away without bothering anyone. People noticed when I didn’t hang out and join conversations.

“It’s easy enough not to do anything scary, really blending in took me learning about and copying as many social cues as possible. I know more about human behavioral ticks than any of the humans I’ve met.”

Cy tipped her head, intrigued. “Such as?”

White thought. “If you’re directly facing someone who’s worked up, angling yourself to stand next to them is less confrontational and can make them calm down. Oh, and when people are paying attention to each other they mimic body language. Cross your arms, wait a bit, uncross them, drop them to your sides, drop them. The other person won’t notice but they’ll copy you. I taught Purple that one, it’s how she amuses herself when she’s caught in an Orange monologue.”

Cy thought back to times she’s stood chatting or arguing with someone. “Huh.”

“You can read how comfortable people are with body language, too,” it said. “Fidgeting, fiddling with something in their hands, rocking or crossing arms are obvious tells that someone’s stressed.”

“Does that mean when you cross _your_ arms or fidget, you’re playacting?” She didn’t like the idea.

“Mmm, sometimes. Think of it like learning a second language. You learn grammar and sayings and levels of formality through a lot of rules you have to memorize. You’ll never be perfect, and you might not ever _think_ in that language, but it comes easier with practice. At first you’re just making sounds, those sounds become words as comfortable as your first language. And all the while native speakers, who may be entirely ignorant of grammar and parts of speech, can do it so well they’re able to break the rules for fun.

“Basically what I’m getting at,” White said, “is that it’s unfair Black can be antisocial whenever he wants but I am required to throw back beers with the guys.”

Cy started laughing, picturing White stoicly sipping cold ones and pretending to care as Lime went into a self-righteous monologue while Black walked out on the conversation.

“So, just to double check, you’re saying Black isn’t an impostor?”

“No. Just suspiciously good at pingpong.” 

“You’re not bad at pingpong yourself,” Cy said.

White nodded. “I learn fast through observation. I’m not smarter than a human, but I have a much better memory. And I’ve got mirror neurons for days; impostors on their first mission can usually go from ‘no social skills’ to ‘awkward but passable’ within a week or two just by copying what the crew does. When Black plays against me, he’s playing himself; all of my techniques are things I learned watching him.”

“Whoa.”

“I’ve tried to consume a lifetime’s worth of media,” White went on. “Movies, movie reviews, forum threads, games… Social media has been a huge help, so many unscripted genuine behaviors to model. Pop culture references are a good way to get people to assume that you’re normal, but people will notice if you’re a perfect copy of one thing or person. So I mix it up.”

Cy felt crestfallen. “Is… that why you listen to me talking about dinosaur bones and skein weight?”

“That’s why I started listening to you.”

“Oh dear.”

“I like my crewmates,” White said. “But what are we going to talk about? The ones with decent social skills expect me to have my own ideas and comments, and while I’ve gotten a lot better at passing, I’m never completely certain I won’t say or do something alien.”

“Like saying Byron May is a good director?” 

“No, like missing some critical experience so ubiquitous to a human childhood that no one bothers to mention it. Not being able to identify with the existential dread that was normal to everyone growing up in a certain country. Nothing that would set off alarm bells during a conversation, but something that would come back to damn me if my crew ever started hunting impostors.”

She bit her tongue and imagined existing with the omnipresent fear of being discovered, knowing after-work breeze shooting could get you killed. “White…”

“People like Orange and Lime don’t always have anything worth hearing, but they’ll hold the entire conversation if you let them, so that’s a safe way to show everyone I’m a social animal, and it’s given me a convenient reputation of being stoic and easy to get along with. Not someone you need to worry about. The others don’t expect me to be chatty, but they feel awkward if I don’t respond to and build on what they’re saying so they don’t start conversations with me. And it’s strange for them be talking and engaging with each other while I’m there, in the group but just listening.

“And then you signed on, and you did have things worth listening to,” White said. “Something different, usually something none of my other coworkers had every talked about- sometimes things I’d never heard of at all. You just loved learning any new things, and as soon as you did you went and found someone you could teach it to.”

Cy covered her mouth. “Aaa. I always talk too much when I get excited.”

“You talk about interesting things,” White said. “And when I did have something to add or discuss, we would. I don’t want you to think I mind listening to others talking, but for most of my life it’s been something I do in order to learn how to talk like a human, or so that people will think I’m normal. 

“When you talked with me, it was the first time I was relaxing and enjoying conversations for their own sake, without thinking through body language and listening cues. I’ve had thousands of conversations like a human would, but it was the first time I felt like I was having one for the same reason humans do.

“And then I outed myself, and you gave me the chance to prove that I wasn’t a monster, and now I can have a real conversation with another person without triple-filtering everything I say to make sure it sounds normal.”

A lump formed in Cy’s throat. She licked her lips, swallowed. “Oh… White...”

White waved the topic away with a flick of one hand. “So back to your original question, don’t quote me on my impostor anatomy. I wasn’t taught any of it, I’ve had to read a lot of biology and make guesses. It’s a lot of words I got off descriptions of structures in functions in humans and animals that, the best I can tell, are similar to mine. But if you do find an impostor doctor making a textbook, give me their number. I’d love to do some fact-checking.”

Cy pushed down the emotions burning in her chest; if White didn’t want to make an issue of this she wasn’t going to push. “Do you think- _Is_ there an impostor doctor? I’m sure you’re not- the _only_ impostor who’s… uh. Not… Who’s stopped- er...”

White picked at its rubbery fingertips. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed cooperating is a better deal than what we were told to do, or the first one who’s made friends with humans.” It looked at Cy, looked down, and back at her. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about that at all. I understand that people… Impostors think in the present. We’re not very good at grudges or keeping score of how someone used to behave, if they’ve changed. I know humans- I know you don’t think like me in that regard and I don’t want to keep reminding you that I used to be dangerous.

“It means a lot that you trust me despite everything.”

Cy looked at White.   
“I do trust you,” she said slowly.   
She had meant to say more, but the words hung in the air.

The silence stretched, and Cy pulled up an episode of something without really paying attention.

Was it selfish, or cowardly of her not to press White for details of what it had done? Cy could imagine what it had done, before becoming a different kind of crewmate.

She was a little afraid to ask White to confirm her assumptions.

Cy looked over the massive, gentle person sitting next to her, laughing at some quip from the video. Maybe it _was_ selfishness. But Cy was content with the person she knew in the present.

Every other week the crew of the Skeld gathered for movie night. It was a highlight of their assignment, not because of the movie or company, but because Black home brewed KoolAid wine in his quarters, and was exceedingly generous with the result.

Cy sat between Blue and White on one sofa, enjoying the sensation of alcohol swishing through her inner ears. She wasn’t paying attention to the movie; they always rewatched one of about twelve ‘classics’ since the point of the get together was less entertainment than socializing.

The rowdy bunch settled as the clock wound down, people leaving a few at a time to get to bed until it was just White, Yellow, Green, and herself still awake. Between the late hour and the booze Cy was feeling deliciously sleepy, listening to her friends and colleagues chatting about this and that, laughing and shouting at scenes in the movie, cracking the sort of in-jokes one gets to making after a year on a space station.

She didn’t know when she’d first slumped over to lean on White, but when she noticed, Cy couldn’t muster the willpower to sit up straight.

White was holding perfectly still, not joining in the others’ conversations. It had placed its hand palm-down on its knee, right next to hers, the little finger playing in the space between them.

Cy sighed, closing her eyes and settling more comfortable against its shoulder. She slipped her hand over White’s. After a few seconds, it pulled it free, and put its arm across her shoulders. 

“Oooooh,” whispered Yellow from across the room. 

“ _Hah!_ I knew it,” Green hissed back. “C’mon, c’mon.” 

Cy heard the couch creak and Green announce they were going to bed, and for White and Cy not to stay up too late.

“We’ll be good.” White’s voice was playful. Cy mumbled acquiescence into its shoulder.

By the end credits Cy was feeling sobered enough to stretch and sit up, reaching up to touch White’s hand. 

“You ready for bed?” White asked softly.

“Mmyeah.” She looked into White’s visor, feeling clearer-headed but still warmed by the wine. “Hey, White. What were you planning on doing with me back in Electrical?”

“Sorry?”

“When you killed the lights.”

“Oh.” She heard it swallow. “Okay… first, some context. I was treating you like an impostor when I jumped on you. We assume anyone who meets up with someone in heat is consenting, so there’s not a lot of discussion. Our ‘no’s are unambiguous enough that most anything else can be a ‘yes.’”

“What’s a ‘no’ look like?”

“Ovipositor fully retracted and blocking the sex canal, biting or stabbing with the intent of injury, any lance displaying....Kneeing in the dick.”

“I… am not going to apologize for that,” Cy said.

“And well you shouldn’t.”

“But yes, that does put things in context for me.” She remembered how it had felt, lying on her back, looking up at his unfolding limbs. “So, what would you have done, if there’d not been a ‘no’?”

“I wouldn’t have done anything you weren’t okay with.”

“Imagine I was okay with everything.”

White played with her fingers, quiet for a long time. “I wasn’t used to feeling that turned on and was moving too quickly. But if I could do it over again…”

“Mhmm?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

White looked down at her. “I’d want to hold you. Not touch or stimulate you, not yet. Just get you in my arms, wrap you up. Let you try and get away, maybe tickle you a bit if you weren’t struggling.”

“You’d want me to struggle?”

“I’d want to feel your strength,” it said. “And then I’d let you feel mine. Hold you so tight and immobile you could feel I was strong enough to take care of us. Then you’d relax, and I’d get to learning your body. You’d be impatient, but I’d be selfish and really savor that, getting to know every inch of you.”

Cy thought she might be starting to blush.

“When you were really desperate, I’d help you get that suit off. I’d loop myself over your limbs and hold you close and secure. I know you’ve never been with an impostor before, so I’d take it slow. Put some time into you with my hands and my tongues, and when you were ready, I’d start with a tentacle. Stretched out narrow, and soft. I’d slide in… let you feel me moving inside you. Find out where you liked me to touch you, and then push in more, get thicker, fill you up. Fuck you sweet and gentle until you came for me.”

Cy’s spacesuit was getting uncomfortably warm.

“By then, I imagine my own arousal would be almost untenable… my ovipositor would be dripping and twitching, and when you asked me for more, I’d press it into you, give your body time to adjust to me; I would have gotten you ready with my tentacles but you’d feel the difference. I’d test how deep you would like me to go, and then I’d hold you down and really get to work. I want to tell you I’d make it last but, after all that I think I’d be so close myself… And when I couldn’t draw it out any longer I’d slide in as far as you liked and you’d feel me, feel my eggs pushing into you, stretching you. Filling you up…”

“Is this turning you on?” Cy blurted out.

“Mm? No, I’m in anestrous.”

Cy stared at the blue screen of the TV, resisting the need to squeeze her thighs together. “You’re really just telling me what’d happen, realistically?”

“Yeah. I can stop.”

It had moved its free hand towards her but hesitated, wanting, she assumed, to comfort her while being aware it was scaring her. 

Cy took its wrist and drew both of White’s arms around herself.

“Mm,” it intoned, gathering her in to rest its cheek on her helmet.

“What do impostors do after sex?”

“Roll over and fuck the other one.”

“Hah! Well, okay. After that?”

“Hold on to each other while they come down. Eggs release a hormone that ends the heat. And…” it stroked her upper arm. “Makes their carrier feel feel peaceful and a little bit sleepy.”

Cy was feeling peaceful and a little bit sleepy herself.

White meshed its fingers in hers. “You want me to take you back to your bunk?”

“Mm. I don’t think we’d survive all the knowing looks at breakfast if somebody saw us.”

“We’ve already got Green and Yellow shipping us, I think our reputation is salvageable either way.”

“I’m happy staying here a little longer. If you’re cool with that.”

“Whatever you like, sweet girl.”

White must have made good on its offer, because Cy woke up in her bunk. She lifted her blanket and found herself stripped to the underclothes. Definitely didn’t remember that part. 

Cy rolled onto her side, imagining White undressing her so gently she didn’t wake up.

Hazy memories of their last conversation came back to her.

Cy stared at the door, remembering White’s arms around her and its soft, gruff voice. She started masturbating.


	5. Full-Body Deep-Tissue Pressure

She felt the RUD coming on like an old friend. 

A creeping warmth, a tightness in her nethers, a longing for touch. Cy found a crooked, guilty smile playing over her face as she recognized the symptoms. She threw herself into morning chores, knowing her time to get them done would be truncated. 

She joined Orange to knock out some electrical maintenance, trusting his years of experience lest the horniness go to her brain; this cheap junker of a spaceship needed so much TLC… sometimes Cy felt they couldn’t get to Polus soon enough.

Purple was with Orange, observing, and he was walking her through the process as if nothing was out of the norm, apart from his voice being a bit tight. Purple needed some confidence, Cy decided, as she watched Purple bend close to watch what Orange was doing. Classic case of book smarts with no practical experience. 

When they were finished Cy stood up and headed for the next task. She didn’t realize Purple had followed her until she was opening a panel on the wall, and felt the tap on her shoulder.

“Oh, what’s up?” She asked.

“Hey, Cy,” Purple said. Cy waited, but Purple just stood there, too close. Cy took a half step back. 

“Did you need something?” she prompted.

Purple twisted her hands together. “Umm. May I ask you about something?”

“Yeah, of course,” Cy said.

“White likes you, right?” 

Cy was completely caught off guard. “Uh. Well, yes, he does.” Understatement. 

“Do you know what he sees in you?”

Cy blinked. Her first impulse was to be offended, but Purple looked so uncomfortable standing there, wringing her hands. Instead, Cy felt worry creep into the back of her mind. Purple had always been so sweet and socially awkward it was hard not to think of her as much younger than she was, and Cy knew how often she went to White for help; it was practically her mentor. It was probably an earnest question.

“Well…” Cy thought back to their conversation in front of the TV. Trust, and interests, and passion. “That’s kind of personal, Purple.”

“Oh.” 

Cy fidgeted. Open jealousy would have been one thing, but Purple looked so uncomfortable.

Cy tried to think of what she could say, some way to reassure Purple or talk her through the situation. She wished she didn’t have to be doing it in the hallway, unprepared, and huffing pheromones.

“Do you think…” Purple began, and Cy looked at her.

“Yes?”

“Do you think… Pink would be interested in me?”

Once again, Cy was completely caught off guard by the question. “What?”

“Well, I saw how you and White are getting along… maybe… he’s not going to ask me but if I brought it up… maybe Pink would be interested in…”

“Oh!” 

“Do you think he’d…?”

“Yes, definitely,” Cy said, relieved. “I’m sure he’d be very flattered.”

Purple perked up so transparently; once again Cy reminded herself this was a well-educated twenty-something, not a poor dumb kid.

“I’m worried about trying because I’m not very good with people,” Purple said bluntly, and Cy had to stifle a laugh. “Should I ask if he’d like to watch a movie with me?”

“That sounds like a safe bet,” Cy said. “It’s what White and I usually do.”

“Ah! Okay. Thanks, Cy!”

“Good luck,” she laughed. “I’m not the best at relationship advice, but I know Brown, Green or Yellow’d be happy to give you some tips.”

Purple brightened. “Okay!”

She waved goodbye and headed up the hall. Cyan belatedly wondered if it hadn’t been a little irresponsible encouraging Purple to pursue a relationship during a RUD. Cy shook her head. She’d have to check in afterwards.

An hour passed.

Cy was going to finish her tasks, god _dammit_ , every single one of them, in a reasonable amount of time and before she took time to herself, because _she was just that good at her job._.  
And her colleague’s raging-boner pheromones were not going to stop her.

A friend in college had once joked that women were just as big of horndogs as men, only women could ‘hide it better.’ Stomping stalwortly through the halls towards Shields Cy thought that must be true; nothing was visible through her space suit but by _god_ if the lubricant oozing down her legs wasn’t distracting as fuck. 

Black seemed to be the only other person still adamantly getting his work done. Cy wished she was closer to him, because she would have liked to ask what about arousal made him look so damn mad as he kept up his his hobbies and responsibilities through RUD events. She’d have to ask Brown; they were closer to Black than most of the others through the power of trans solidarity.

Cy cleaned out the air filter, fiddled around with the endlessly shoddy wiring of the Skeld, moved some files around and at long last, hot and bothered, found herself once again before her old nemesis, the distributor.

She tried.  
Let it be said on her resume, she did try.

Four minutes later she was standing at the door to White’s bunk.

_Think about this,_ Cy told herself. She could turn around and go to her room. Or finish the list of tasks she’d promised herself she would finish. 

She thought about the sketched man, impaling another.

She thought about White with its arms around her as she dozed off in front of the TV.

She thought about the tight, hot, damp desire in her groin and _sweet and gentle until you came for me._

Cy knocked.

She pressed her knees together as she waited, hugging herself over her breasts. Fuck if she didn’t need someone touching her.

She knocked again, harder. “White!”

“Cy?” The answer came at once, surprised and- distorted.

“White? Can I...”

The door cracked open, exposing the edge of White’s visor. It looked up the hall, saw she was alone, and opened the door all the way.

“Cy,” it hissed. Something in its body clicked. It looked past her again, then back down at her. It was too tall, and its voice was thick with eagerness. “Come in. Please.”

It moved back, and Cy slipped inside. White had cleaned up its face to peek out, but Cy swallowed at the sight of the rest of it, limbs twisted, skin spiked and gnarled.

“Cy,” White whispered, looking down at her. “Oh, Cy, you’re here…”

It ruptured up the front, faux fabric shredding for the maw to snarl open, its ribs unfolding into barbed, jointed crab legs, loops of tentacle churning in its abdomen like intestine. It edged sideways, not touching Cy but pushing her with its presence, backing her away from the door which it slammed shut with a kick, maneuvering her so she hit her calf on the- _bed._

“Wait, wait,” Cy gasped, holding up her hands. What was she _doing?_

White stopped its advance, appendages flexing. “Cy. Oh, Cy, please…”

“Don’t touch me,” Cy said, too loudly. “Could you- oh my God. Make yourself smaller. You’re scaring me.”

It froze, looming over her, and with an effort of will brought its limbs back into its chest cavity. She watched its hands and feet spasm, shrinking into something more human. 

White crossed its arms over the open chasm in its body. It stared at her, waiting. Cy goggled at it, flushed inside her helmet. She put a hand behind her for balance and sat down on the bunk.

White let out a sigh that shuddered through its entire body. A high, curdled whine issued from somewhere inside it and, still hugging itself, it sank down on its knees. “You look frightened,” White said miserably. “Do you want to leave?”

White was so big, so feral; it looked less like it was groveling so much as crouching to pounce on her. Cy tried to get her thoughts under control. “I feel like I should want to leave,” she said. She gripped her upper arm and squeezed, hard. “I feel like I’m walking into a really obvious and stupid trap.”

White made a sad, frustrated sussuration. 

“I don’t know,” she continued, speaking rapidly. “I want to trust you, you’ve had so many chances to hurt someone, or me, that you didn’t take… but what if you’re playing the long con? I… I don’t know…”

White emitted a wretched laugh. “You’re a scientist,” it reminded her. “You know you can’t prove a negative.”

That made her laugh, short and stressed. 

“I just want to please you. You look so needy. Please, please let me please you.”

Cy groaned because _fuck_ yes it was correct. She gripped the bed, gritting her teeth, trying to think straight. She looked at White, shivering and earnest. Cy lowered her voice.

“Don’t take my suit off.”

White perked up like a terrier hearing the front door.

“If I want to stop…”

“I’ll stop,” it promised. It was rising from the floor, coming closer. “Cy... Cy… let me hold you...”

“Okay… okay, you can-”

Tentacles surged from the open abdomen, snapping around her waist and pinning her elbows down, twisting and looping and tightening. 

“White!”

“Sorry…” 

She was peripherally aware of its hands opening back into taloned paws that it put at her hips. White’s ‘ribcage’ was fully exposed, jointed crablegs catching at her suit. A large, ridged appendage arched over her shoulder, pressing into her under one shoulder blade. 

“Too fast?” White asked.

“Just a little,” she whispered. “...Don’t stop.”

A thick, powerful tentacle disgorged from White’s side. It slithered over Cy’s lap, its weight making her gasp, and curled under her legs, looping at the thighs, knees and calves, squeezing them together. The other tentacles were moving over her upper body, repositioning, tightening.

White put a hand to the small of her back, pushing her forward. A smaller tentacle attached at its core slapped over her stomach, lapping at her like a tongue. Cy thrust her hips forward, trying to open her knees for it. The loop around her held fast, tightening when she tried to push through the resistance. Cy grunted in frustration, then remembered.  
"You want me to struggle?"  
A dark snicker. "If you'd like to _try_..."  
Cy wrenched her shoulder up, almost getting an arm free before a new tentacle caught her wrist. She tried to shake loose; it moved with her but she wasn't strong enough to resist as it pulled her arm out straight and twisted it behind her back. She locked her other elbow, holding her shoulder when White tried to do the same there, and kicked out with both legs. White seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of appendages, responding to her wriggles. Two of the its littler crablegs flicked out and scritched at her side.

It didn't tickle through her suit, but she knew what it was trying to do and laughed anyway. White took advantage of the distraction to get both arms behind her back, binding her forearms together. It crablegs hooked around her like a cage and its face unhinged, spilling tongues over her visor and snapping mandibles shut over either side of her helmet.

"Whoa!" She shouted. She thought she ought to be terrified, but was thrilled.

The coils around her middle and legs contracted, full-body deep-tissue pressure making her go limp.

White was clicking like an idling engine, delighted. It loosened its hold on her legs, and she spread them open to thick ropes of tentacle circling deliciously over her thighs and pulling her close against White. More noises emanated from its body, crackles and hisses of excitement.

"How you doing?" Its voice was strained, its jaws still around her face.

" _Hot._ "

White lifted off her, sitting back cross legged on the bed, planting its hands behind it, holding Cy to its chest in innumerable limbs so she straddled its hips. A loop pushed up between her thighs and she grunted, pushing into it before White could ask for permission. It pressed obligingly into her suit, firming into a taught knob and angling to allow her to grind at her own speed.

Cy felt lightheaded, hearing White's wordless, vocalized pleasure as she picked up the pace.

"Are you close?"

"Yeah. Yes," she panted. "God. _Yes._ "

It leaned forward, grabbing her ass in its great paws and pulling her harder against its lap. Cy was emitting deliriously happy noises, bucking her hips into the tentacle between them, White clicking and rasping in joy as she came.

Cy snarled, pressing into White’s chest as pleasure rippled up up the length of her spine, making her shake. Her knees tightened, trembling, toes curling in their boots, the warmth of release pulsing through her groin.  
White threw a loose coil around her neck and released its mandibles, ropes of saliva stretching between their visors. She slumped forward, huffing through gnashed teeth. It rubbed her back, supporting her as she came down.

“How was that?” White asked when her breathing had settled. She swallowed, condensation beading on the inside of her visor. 

“Good,” she managed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Fuck.” Cy smiled self-consciously up at White. She didn’t think anyone had every looked so happy to hear that she’d come. “Gimme… give me an arm free.”

The tentacle loosened enough for her right wrist to slither loose and flop down to her side. She took a few seconds, still panting, and then reached behind her.

White didn’t try to catch her again, but she could feel its tentacles groping at her arm, unable to resist touching her. She felt the soft slickness of them where they held her thighs, the coarse ridge of a crableg, and- there it was. Something much more substantial.

White inhaled as she grasped its ovipositor, hauling it it up from behind her over a hip and into her lap. It was drenched in its own lubricant, sliming up her suit. The fingerlike projections covering the tip were opened like petals on a flower, and she could feel the erectile nubs at the end pulled tight and swollen with fluid.

“Cy-”

She took the head in the palm of her hand and squeezed. White gasped, its tentacles shuddering over her body. She began to massage it, running her thumb through the ridge, swirling it in circles around the opening. White’s body undulated, trying to keep still and keep a hold of her as its back arched. Encouraged, Cy pushed the head between her inner thigh and White’s side, pinning it in place with her leg, and began to stroke the shaft with purpose.

The ovipositor spasmed, nearly breaking free, lubricant slopping over them both. White was producing helpless, tremulous sounds and Cy was grinning, gasping for breath and milking White with all her remaining strength.

When White’s vocalizations jumped a few octaves higher Cy slowed, pressing down harder into the ovipositor and running a slow, deep stroke to the back of its head. White keened, squeezing her. It had wrapped tendrils over her wrist, muscles twitching as it fought the desire to make her move faster. Cy took the head back into her hand and clamped down, rhythmically massaging. She repeated the process- holding it against her thigh as she stroked and rubbing the head until White whined- twice more until White snarled, body jerking against her, and she felt something solid force its way through the organ under her hand.

With a spat, something erupted out of the opvipositor, falling into their laps. She felt it again, the ovipositor spasming as more things passed through it. Cy counted seven emissions, each one leaving White whimpering, until the contractions subsided into shivering twitches.

Cy leaned back, its tentacles slackening around her, and saw through the steam in her helmet a pile of translucent, dark red eggs.

“Wow,” she mumbled.

White moved its paw to her shoulder. “Cy…”

“White you…”

A tongue slid out of its visor, licking up the edge of her helmet.

“You’re a _messy_ motherfucker.”

White was in no state to answer, whole body flinching as it rode out the aftershocks. 

Cy reached up with a sluggish arm, fingers slipping in the slick as she groped at her helmet. “Help me get this off?”

It managed to raise a tendril to her neck, undoing the catch and lifting her helmet free. Cy sucked in the fresh air, murmuring appreciatively when the tendril cleared the hair out of her eyes.

White unwrapped her, drawing back its smaller tentacles but leaving the heavy one around her middle and pulling her down so they lay on their sides on the bunk, legs entwined. 

“Better?” she asked sardonically.

“Much,” it said.

“You’re _really_ strong,” Cy told it.

“Strong enough to take care of you?” A mandible cocked into something resembling a jaunty grin.

“Mm. Possibly.”

“ _Possibly?!_ ”

“We’ll need further experimentation to support the hypothesis.”

“You…! Well, as long as it’s for science...”

“Fuck me,” Cy panted, “but I think I’m _still_ horny.”

“That’s the pheromones, sorry.”

Cy groped clumsily between them, caught something slippery and round, and raised the egg to her eyes. The egg had a jelly texture and a solid core, the whole of it coated in thick, viscous lubricant.

“I wasn’t expecting so many.”

“It’s been a while,” White admitted. “...And you had me ovulating pretty hard.”

Cy laughed, closing her eyes. “That’s a really weird thing to tell someone, and I’m flattered.”

A tongue kissed the sweat from her brow. “You need a nap?” it asked. “Or… you think you’d like a little more?”

“Both?” Cy mumbled. “Both is good…”

“Heheheh. Take a breather, sweet girl. I’ll be here for whatever you need.” A gloved hand ran up and down her back, tentacles curving possessively around the thigh she had thrown over White’s hip.

“Mmm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poses in this scene are an homage to nasty_eels' photoset here https://twitter.com/nasty_eels/status/1310726140118462464?s=21  
> Top right with the nosebleed emoticon was what first got me thinking about pheromones that can make you desperately horny, which was what got this whole thing rolling.


	6. We're Not Allowed to Talk About Impostors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's get to know the crew.

After a few minutes of lying together Cy shifted, and grimaced. Having the helmet off helped, but the interior of her suit was soaked. “I need a shower,” she said.

White made a noncommittal noise. She stroked the arm lying heavily over her shoulder, and it reluctantly sat up, legs, tendrils, tentacles and tongues retreating into its body. 

“Um,” Cy said as she sat up as well. Both of them were slathered with lubricant, and there remained a veritable pile of eggs.

“I’ll take care of those,” White said. It rolled a shoulder, and the maw sealed. “Good thing there aren’t any cameras between here and the showers. I didn’t think ahead.”

She snorted. “God, I hope nobody is in the halls.”

“If anyone asks, just tell them you tripped and fell in some tentacles.”

“White!”

“Or you could do a walk of shame in one of my suits,” White teased. 

Cy opened her mouth to retort what a ridiculous fit that would be, but paused. “Do you have suits?”

“Of course I do,” it said. “Be kind of suspicious if I just had the one suit that I never took off.” It gestured to the closet. “I run them through laundry along with some underclothes and towels.”

“Huh.”

“I’d get them musky if I could, but…” White hung its head. “Humans can’t smell impostor body odor.”

Cy snickered. “I’m not choking you out with _my_ body odor, am I?”

The visor lifted enough for a single, thin tongue to extend and lick around the bottom rim. 

“Wow! Okay, going to shower now.” She took a last gulp of fresh air and pulled her helmet back on.

“I need to clean off as well, I’ll walk you there,” White said.

“What if someone sees us?”

“What if someone sees us going to the showers together during a RUD? ...Actually that may not be something you want people talking about. I can wait.”

Cy pursed her lips. “You know what… I think I’m fine with it either way.” She took White’s hand and they headed into the hall. Walking in the saturated space suit was a distinctly unpleasant experience, and she barely took the time to lock the door to the showers before freeing herself from its smothering embrace.

She threw it down the laundry chute with relish, and looked over at White. It had taken one of the shower heads and was hosing itself down, spreading the lips of its abdomen to rinse lubricant off its insides.

“Huh,” Cy said. “Do you not reabsorb that?”

“Eventually, but it feels like…” it made squelching noises, and she laughed.

Cy was getting the impression that White was sensitive to things that might frighten a human, but not remotely shy about its own body. She wondered if she was the first human it had been able to show this side of itself to.

White turned to her, looking up and down her body. Covered only in the clammy underclothes, Cy felt a sudden wash of embarrassment, a need to qualify or justify something. Before she could work out what, White gave a short wave.

"I'll give you some privacy," it said, and let itself out of the showers.

Cy swallowed. She looked down at her body, frustrated, and undressed to shower off.

A day or so after the pheromones had settled, Brown invited Cy and White to guest star on their channel for a game of _Sphinx_ , during which Cy learned that White was a strategic mother _fucker_ and that Brown’s audience was shipping them, hard.

“So Cy, the people want to know,” Brown said too casually as the loading screen swirled. “Are you and White an item?”

White looked at Cy so sharply that she wondered if it hadn’t gotten the memo that everyone knew they’d been cuddling on movie night.

“Yes,” she said.

The chats went berserk.

“Breaking news!” Brown whooped. “Cy and White are a couple! Post shipping handles.”

“Oh my fucking God,” said Cy. She glared at Brown, but when White laced its fingers with hers, she found it difficult to stay mad. 

They played a last round, Cy trying to focus as the fans spammed the blue heart and polar bear emojis. As soon as the cameras were off, she rounded on Brown.

“Sorry! Sorry, I hope that was cool,” they said, holding up defensive hands.

“You could have warned me!”

“Are we dating?” White asked.

Cy and Brown looked back at it. It had its hands folded in its lap, still holding the controller.

“I mean.” White looked at Cy. “Do you want to date me?”

“I…” 

Brown had gone completely still, hands steepled over their mouth.

“Yes,” Cy said. Her mouth went dry, she licked her lips. “If you want to date me?”

“You’re not just saying that for the stream?” White asked. 

“Do you want to date me?” She asked again.

“...Yes.”

“Then, I guess we’re dating,” she mumbled, color rising under her visor.

She barely heard Brown’s ecstatic squeal as White swept her off her feet.

Cy wasn’t at all surprised when the next evening she found a folded invite taped to her door, inviting her to a party in Green and Yellow’s room. Cy sighed, knowing exactly what they would be celebrating, but made her way there all the same. It didn’t do to be antisocial on a tin can like this.

Red’s room was the largest, of course, but Yellow and Green had had two rooms connected after they tied the knot, making it the usual spot for a get together. 

Cy stopped in front of their door; someone had actually written _NO BOYS (except White)_ on a sticky note. She knocked.

“Come in!” 

“Do I have to?” She called through the door.

Brown’s warm laugh. Cy rolled her eyes and let herself in.

She felt better about coming when she saw what they’d done. One could not simply go to get party décor on a spaceship, but the little table in the center of the room was piled with samples of the precious personal snacks crewmembers packed. One nibble of a real Churrito™ was worth an hour of knowing looks and ribbing in Cy’s book.

She felt better still when she saw White, taking up a corner all by itself, chatting with Purple.

“I’m not complaining, but why did you invite White to the girl’s party?” 

“We knew you’d just be humoring us staying here if he wasn’t here,” Green said.

“Ah.”

Green dragged a chair next to White and gestured for Cy to sit. When she had, Green flicked a fingernail against her plastic cup like someone ringing a wine glass for attention.

“Alright, thanks for joining me, everyone,” Green said. “As you know, nothing interesting ever happens on the Skeld, but this week we were blessed by Cy and White hooking up.”

Brown whooped.

“While no one’s sweet, spaceflight romance could match that of my own which I am continuing to share with my dear wife,” Green went on, so Yellow smiled and rolled her eyes, “I am so happy we have something new to talk about that we’re having a party.”

“ _Increíble,_ ” Cy said.

“ _Lo siento, conejita,_ ” Green said. “You’re the gossip mill until we hit planetside.”

Cy accepted a cup of wine and chugged.

Old Blue was munching contentedly on a bag of chips, looking pleased. “How did it happen?” She asked. 

“Hmm?” White said.

“You’ve been following Cy around for months. How did finally catch her attention?”

“Uh,” White and Cy said at the same time. They glanced at each other. “Umm,” Cy said, to give herself time to think, then blinked and looked at White. “Hang on, months? Really?”

“Cy, I _told_ you White was interested in you a month after you signed on,” Yellow said.

Cy’s head spun. “You did? Wait… you did. I thought you were teasing me!”

White started to laugh. She rounded on him. “How long have you been…?”

“A while,” he admitted. 

Their laughter was doing nothing for how flustered Cy felt. 

“You had more important things on your mind,” White soothed. She could hear the smile in his voice. “Fossils and chores and the vacuum of space, and there was a new season of _Kōtakunoaru Kyōryū_.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” she bawled, and it laughed. 

The crewmates lobbed a few more ticklish questions at White and Cy, trying to get them to squirm, before settling into amiable conversation. Cy noticed, for the first time, how deftly White was flipping the dialog into someone else talking at every opportunity.

She realized that while everyone else was eating snacks and goofing around, White was on its guard. Cy threaded her arm through White’s, and started doing most of the talking.

She felt tension go out of its shoulder.

A few cups in, Cy was actually starting to enjoy herself. She’d gotten into an animated conversation with Brown and was gnawing through a meat stick when a knock came at the door.

“No boys!” Brown was slightly inebriated.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” came a cool, level tone that made them all sit up straighter, “but would you happen to have White in there?”

“Uh,” Green said. She scrambled up and opened the door. Cy knew RedCap to be a thin, scruffy man with kind eyes and perpetual stubble, but in his suit, standing with his shoulders squared, he was making Cy feel as through she’d just been caught misbehaving.

White cleared its throat. “Yes, Captain?”

“A word?” Red said. The others exchanged looks. 

“Yes, sir,” White said. It gave Cy’s hand a squeeze and moved to stand behind Red.

“This may take a while,” Red said. There was a levity in his voice, but not as much as they’d become accustomed to. “Don’t let us stop your party.”

They touched visors in informal salute and Red closed the door. A lull.

“What was that?” Cy finally asked. “Is White in trouble?”

“Uh…” Green and Yellow exchanged looks, brows knitted. 

“Maybe… White was talking about impostors,” Purple piped. They all looked at her. She misread the stare, put her hands on her hips. “What? It’s not allowed!”

“It’s true, I’ve never met a man so allergic to rumors as Red,” Brown said, putting a soothing hand on Purple’s shoulder. 

“When I first signed on I made such a dog’s meal of electric, I said it was king of suspicious how long it took me to do a task, and you should have _seen_ the look he gave me,” Yellow said. 

“I got that look,” Green said. “All I said was that my fat ass wouldn’t fit through the vents. You’d think I’d sent his mom a dead rat.”

“That’s nothing,” Blue said. She’d gone through several cups, and had been gently swaying from side to side. “You should have seen what he did to _Black_.”

Immediately she had their full attention.

“Oh, do tell,” Yellow said. 

“Yeah, I haven’t heard this one,” Brown encouraged.

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” Blue said, putting a hand to her mouth and look away. 

“C’moooon,” Green wheedled. “I know you want to spill it.”

Brown was already refilling Blue’s mug.

“Oh, alright,” she said, as if they’d twisted her arm. “It’s not like it’s much of a story. This was right after Black signed on. He was doing some sort of impostor research project. Saw impostors everywhere, got suspicious of the crew. 

“When Red got wind of it, phew! I haven’t seen him so mad since.”

“Wow,” Purple said. “Is that why Black’s so…?” She waved a hand around. Yellow snorted into her cup.

“Cy, you believe in impostors,” Brown said suddenly.

A needle of fear pierced the warm veil of alcohol. “Brown, I’d appreciate not talking about that as long as we’re both members of RedCap’s crew,” she managed to enunciate. 

“I just meant- maybe you could talk to Black, if he did a, mm, research project on them.”

“It’s his thesis,” Blue said. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shit. No more for me.” She put her cup down and snatched up a juice box. 

“His… thesis?” Cy asked cautiously. 

“That’s all you’re getting out of me!” Blue said. “I’ve already said too much. Brown, don’t you dare go teasing Black about this.”

“Me?” Brown squawked. “I would never.”

The party wound down, all wine and snacks consumed, questions getting less and less appropriate as the night wore on, until Yellow was hissing sex advice in Cy’s ear and she was laughing too hard to hear it. She finally bid them adieu, head fuzzy and steps staggered, and made her way to her own bunk. She passed White’s, but the glass strip near the ceiling was dark and there was no answer to her tap. Cy frowned, hugging herself, wishing she fall asleep in his big, bearlike arms. In her bunk, Cy took a few sips of water, changed into her Pjs, and hugged a pillow to her chest as she passed out.

The next morning Cy had just raised a hand to let herself out of her room and head to breakfast when the loudspeaker crackled.

“Good morning, all!” Red’s voice, bright and commanding. “Please proceed to the cafeteria for a special announcement.”

Cy looked up, relieved to hear him sounding back to his old self. 

Once in the cafeteria Cy caught her breath- was that _bacon and eggs_ she could smell? She started to salivate. Surely it was too much to hope she’d be tasting real food two days in a row? But when they’d all gathered, Red unveiled the food cart, and sure enough- double helpings of freshly reheated, vacuum-sealed precooked breakfasts.

Cries of excitement and longing met the sight.

“Good morning,” Red boomed, quieting them. “I can see you’re in a hurry, so I’ll make this brief. As of today, we are fourteen days out from making landfall at Polus. You’ve got two more weeks to loaf around on this ship, and then you can all go back to the skilled workers and scientists you were hired to be.”

Exclamations of joy and relief.

“I expect every one of you to bring 110% for the time we’ve got left. I know the Skeld hasn’t always been the easiest to live on, but you’ve all made me proud taking care of her as she got us this far. So let’s have a special breakfast, and get to work.”

They fell on the bacon and eggs like animals, Red having to remind a few of them to finish their first portion before returning for seconds.

White accepted its share of bacon, only to tip it onto Cy’s plate.

“Hey,” she protested. 

“I’m a vegetarian,” White said wanly. 

“Are you really? ...Why’d you take it in the first place?”

“Not really, but the grease gets to me. And for you, of course.” White said. 

Cy moved her mug to block the view of their table from Orange. “You’re an angel.” Then she straightened, lowering her voice. “What happened last night? When Red pulled you away?”

“I’ll tell you when we have a private minute,” White answered. It finished its eggs, gave her shoulder a squeeze, and stood up. “Purple.” 

Purple jumped up from her bench.

“Let’s get a jump on that engine.”

Purple pushed her leftovers to Pink and followed White out, looking like she’d been expecting- and possibly hoping- for the assignment.

Cy made herself take as long as possible to finish the breakfast, savoring every mouthful, nibbling at the bacon. When she was down to her last strip, she looked up and saw nearly everyone had cleared away; only Blue and Lime together at one table, and Black left by himself at another.

Right.

Cy got her tray and went to the table.

“Hey, Black. Mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” Black said.

She sat down. Black seemed to be as focused on memorizing the texture of proper food as she had been.

Cy finished her bacon and waited for Black to finish and wipe his mouth.

“Uh. So I heard you’re…”

Black eyed her sidelong. “Yes…?”

She cleared her throat. “Doing a thesis on aliens?”

Black muttered something Cy didn’t need translated. Black turned to her, fixing her with his dark eyes. “Do _you_ believe in aliens?”

Cy scratched the back of her neck. “Do I believe in life on other planets? Yes, of course-”

“Are you trying to get me to talk about impostors, or not?” Black snapped.

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Yes, I am.”

“You need to be reminded why Captain Red does not tolerate that sort of discussion on his ship?”

Cy bit her tongue.

Black searched her face, and looked a little penitent. He shook his head. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.” He looked at his cleared tray. “What were you going to ask?”

Cy fiddled with her fork. “I guess… what you knew about them.”

“Rumors,” Black said. They looked irritated. 

“But you do believe in them?”

Black eyed her warily. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Black was quiet so long Cy thought he wasn’t going to answer, but finally, quietly: “I think I met one.”

“Wh- hang on, really?”

Black looked up, piercing her with his glare. “You don’t hear this from me, got it?”

“Yes, of course!”

Black cleared his throat. “I don’t have any proof. I’ve been collecting as many accounts from as many different people as I can, but there’s nothing I would show someone. Nothing firsthand, no footage that couldn’t be explained away.” 

“But _you_ believe.”

Black glowered. “Yes.”

“Does anyone have any idea… where they come from? How they get between space ships?”

“Some of the accounts claim to be from people who personally interviewed an impostor.” Black’s voice softened a little at the idea. “Those are the hardest to support. They claim to be hiding their identity to keep themselves safe from MIRA.

“That stack of paperwork you signed? Did you notice the ninth clause, which described MIRA’s right to impose an NDA on any employee suspected to spreading inflammatory or damaging claims about the job, written or spoken, and how employees describing such things to fellow employees forfeit all unpaid salary?”

“I… did but forgot,” Cy said. She swallowed. She may have to look over her contract again.

“It’s a very convenient cover for anyone wanting to share their story without providing any information about themselves, their job, where they were, or anything else traceable. Makes it incredibly hard to tell honest accounts- if there are any- from hoaxes.”

A tray clattering down across the table startled both of them. Lime had loaded up on the last of the eggs and seated himself. “You’re talking about impostors?” he said, grinning conspiratorially. 

Black looked ready to hang himself. Cy looked around and saw that Blue had finished, leaving the three of them alone in the cafeteria.

Lime shook his head, a knowing smile on his face. 

“What’s your take on impostors, Lime?” Cy asked, smiling sardonically back. 

He speared a bit of egg and wagged it at them. “You put a bunch of brilliant, socially inept nerds in a tin can for eight months, doing the same tasks, breathing the same air, seeing the same faces every day. What’s that a recipe for?”

“Slashers,” said Black.

“Slashers!” Lime exclaimed. “Just normal, working Joe’s gone off the deep-end, hunting their co-workers. So why is the alien story more popular? Well, let me tell you- mass appeal. Cinematic potential! And much easier to dismiss. MIRA gets accused of covering up aliens, well what rational-minded guy on the street is going to buy that? But people find out how this job is a psycho farm, and well! Suddenly your insurance is going through the roof. Can’t get employees, can you?”

“I see where you’re coming from,” Cy said, steepling her fingers, “but may I propose to you- a little of column A, little of column B?”

Lime swallowed a mouthful of egg. “Not possible.” He smiled to himself.

“So sure?”

“All you need- Genesis 1:26.”

Cy’s accommodating smile froze.

“And Hebrews 2:7. God made man in his image. We are the sole center of His attention.”

Cy knew she had to act fast and with no sign of weakness if she wanted to escape this monologue. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime… when we’re done with tasks!” She stood up. “Got a date with the O2 filter, I’ll talk to you later.”

Black and Lime also got up. Lime, ever the gentleman, graciously took their trays to the dishwasher for them, promising to give Cy the details when they had some down time.

She thought Black was only following to get away from him, but he walked with her all the way to O2. Once they were inside he looked her up and down and crossed his arms.

“...Sorry,” she said.

“Why you are sorry?”

“For… getting you to talk about aliens where Lime heard us.”

Black shrugged. He looked across the hall, and said, not looking at her, “He was on my crew.”

“Sorry?”

“The impostor. I think he was. I hope he was, because we killed him.”

“...Oh.” Cy’s head spun.

“You want to know something very interesting?”

“Sure?”

“There are two aliens. The mimics, and the people who breed them.”

Cy stood up straighter. “Excuse me?”

“Or, disposable mimics and ones copying something specific.” Black had that angry intensity back as he looked at the air filter. “But whatever’s sending them onto spaceships, it isn’t _them._ ”

“What is it?”

“How should I know!” Black glared at the ground, looked at Cy, sighed again. “He made it clear he won’t answer my questions.”

Cy’s brows knit. It took a moment for the penny to drop. Then she panicked.

“I don’t know what you…” 

Black swiped a hand through the air, dismissing her. His shoulders drooped. “I am… _glad_ he’s talking to someone,” Black said grudgingly. “It’s safer for him, and he’s happier.” 

Cy drew in a slow breath. A great deal of Black’s personality had just been put into perspective, but she couldn’t rule out some sort of trick. Looking him in the eye, she said evenly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Black’s eyes moved over her face. He nodded, slowly, understanding.

“I am… sorry about…”

“Long time ago,” Black said. “I see you at lunch.”

Cy swallowed. It seemed she and White had a lot to talk about.


	7. Pecking at Asteroids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's learn a little more about impostors.

The last half of the day was blocked out with asteroid duty, a task that was 90% doing nothing and ten percent joyful tapping of screens, went in four hour shifts, and was critical for the Skeld’s safety. 

Cy had barely taken her seat and pulled up the console when there came a rap from the doorway.

A warm smile spread over her face. "Hey, you.”

"Hello, Cy," White replied. It held up a travel mug. "Coffee?"

"Please and thank you," she said. "I'm always afraid I'm going to fall asleep between clouds."

"Would it help having someone to talk to?"

Cy accepted the mug and scooted to make room for White. "Yes! But don't you have work to do?"

"I won't be missed if I take fifteen minutes with my favorite person."

"You're stealing from the company."

"Did you know your eyes smile just a half second before your mouth does, when you're happy?"

Cy's easy grin froze, and she touched a fingertip to her visor. "...Do I?"

White squeezed in beside her. "Mmhmm."

"How did you even... notice that through the..." she trailed off, flustered, warmth stirring in her chest. "If you're trying to sabotage the mission by seducing the communications officer- good job," she snapped.

White put an arm across her shoulders, a chuckle rumbling through it. "No survivors," he growled into her ear.

She gasped as a shiver ran down her spine, stretching her smile into a grin. "Not even me?"

"Hmm. You I might spare. Someone has to clear away all the extra bacon."

"Horrors."

"And protect me from prying questions."

"Aw."

"And make all that sweet, pretty noise when I've got my tentacles around you."

"You can't talk dirty to me when you're cold, that isn't fair," Cy said.

"My apologies. What can we talk about to cool your loins, dear one?"

“Black knows about you.”

“Oh.” White’s shoulder’s slumped. “Yes, I am aware. What did you tell him?”

“What?”

“He asked you about me, what did you tell him?”

“He didn’t, actually,” Cy said. “And I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

White made a noise like someone sighing through their teeth. “That poor man.”

“What?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the first person to lie to his face about knowing. But he really didn’t ask any questions? He has even more self-control than I thought."

"He said you won't answer questions for him."

White nodded. "Correct."

"Because...?"

"Because if- or when- Black's little side project gets noticed by MIRA, it isn’t going to have a single shred of evidence backing his assumption that I'm an impostor. He can have all the theories and field notes he wants in there, but at no point is there going to be the merest shadow of proof connecting his ideas to me."

"Ah."

White swirled its coffee. "You should have seen him when he first started to suspect me."

"How did he know?"

"Oh, this was years ago. I wasn’t as practiced at passing for human back then, and he knew what to look for." White chuckled to itself. "It made for an amusing picture, this tiny little young man sneaking around after big, bumbling me wherever I went. Trying to grab my leftovers out of the trash."

"Aw, you're not bumbling."

"It's true, I'm more of a... lurcher."

"Fff." She gave its side a shove. "So, what did you do?"

"Told Red that Black thought I was an impostor.”

“Oof!”

“Yep. Red had already instituted his draconian policy against impostor gossip, so he came down pretty hard on Black. I expect he would have thrown Black off the crew, if Black had been talking to the other crewmates about it."

"So he's always been pretty taciturn."

"Always? I have no idea. But he helped his crew force a man into an airlock. That sort of behavior does things to a person."

Cy let out a slow, ragged breath. “He mentioned, yeah.”

"Black stopped stalking me after Red got to him, but he still knew, and when his contract was up he signed on again. He'd spent years trying to make sense of what had happened, and he wasn't going to walk away from a real life impostor just because he wasn't allowed to ask questions."

"But he knows that you know that he knows about you?"

“Yeah.”

“Does that scare you?”

“Nah. Black’s trying to deal with the doubt and guilt of what he’s done. He was never looking for a threat, he just wants to understand.”

They lapsed into silence, Cy pecking at asteroids.

"What did Red want?" She asked after a while.

"He needed me to review transmissions from Polus. He’s got a gut feeling that it’s seen impostor activity."

Cy’s brain went in two directions at once. _Oh, shit!_ was one, but she found herself blurting out, “R- _RedCap?_ Red “impostors aren’t real and if you start that again you can find a new job” Cap?”

“Ah,” White said, amused. It ducked its head apologetically. “I suppose I should have mentioned sooner, Red knows about me.”

“Red knows about- Red doesn’t even stand for jokes about impostors!” Cy protested. “He says it’s the kind of dangerous- oh. ….Ohhhh.”

“Yeah.”

“H’s not protecting us from each other, he’s- he’s protecting you.”

“Both,” it said. “Red was a new captain when I joined his ship.” White’s arm was heavy across her shoulders, fingers playing over her arm. “It was the last mission of my... let’s call it my former life.”

Cy took a moment to work that out, and then quietly said, “Oh.”

“There were two of us, and the crew went berserk. We got a few, but not as many as they air-locked themselves, trying to find us.”

Cy caught her breath. “What… I mean, do I want to…”

“RedCap was trying to keep a clear head. Refused to participate after the first, but the crew was big enough he was afraid that if he didn’t let them do something they’d mutiny, and at least he had enough control to make them vote on their next action as a group. Got down to just four of us: RedCap, a crewmate me, and my partner. One of the people they had iced had been a close friend of Red’s, someone he’d worked with for years. I didn’t wait for the next move. I vented my partner out the air-lock myself.

Cy drew a slow, uneasy breath.

“Rescue crew arrived, no one could explain what had happened. The other survivor quit the company- hasn’t left the planet since as far as I’m aware. But Red stayed, and I asked if I could be on his crew.”

“Wh… what…”

“What changed?”

“Yeah.”

“Red trusted me.”

Cy curled a hand over her chest. “I… I see.”

“We’re supposed to make friends,” White went on. “They’re supposed to trust us. But I was just a little… too good at that part. This other survivor, she was hysterical, demanding someone get thrown to the airlock. Red wouldn’t allow it. He knew I was too strong for just the two of them, but I also think he knew what I’d done, that… maybe the danger was passed. And when he didn’t report me, and I asked to join his crew… he said yeah. Taught me the tasks.” White raised his great manimal paws. “And I’d been clean ever since.”

“Uh. _Had_ been clean?” 

“We still have the heat. Told Red about it, said I could hole up somewhere with bad air circulation and keep it to myself. Thought I was keeping things pretty discreet… until…”

Cy smiled nervously. “...Until the day you cut the lights for me?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “You should have heard the dressing down Cap gave me that day, after his boner’d cooled off enough for him to come find me.”

Cy cackled, trying not to picture it. “So getting people hot and bothered and jumping their bones hadn’t been an M.O. for you?”

“Just you,” it promised. White bumped its helmet against hers. “You’re special.”

She leaned into the side hug, but her mind was racing.

Black, complicit in a lynch mob.  
Red, powerless to stop his own crew rising to murderous madness.  
White, sent from ship to ship inciting that panic, until the day it made the decision to stop.

She put her palm over its hand on her shoulder. 

“You’re special, too.”

They were quiet again for some time before the next cloud of asteroids rolled in, Cy sitting forward to concentrate, and suddenly remembered.

“Fuck!” She said, startling White. “You said there’s i-” Cy lowered her voice, “-Red thinks there’s impostor activity on Polus?”

White settled back down. "Yeah. It's got the hallmarks of a MIRA cover-up, but Red's pretty sure there's been a drastic decrease in population recently."

"And he thinks..."

White nodded.

Cy stared at the panel under her hands. "Fuck. What do you think?"

"I think he's right."

"You think there are impostors waiting for us on Polus?"

"We think impostors almost certainly were on Polus, and between themselves and the crew itself, wiped out most of the people there before getting caught. MIRA's suppressing the information, but those survivors aren't going to keep quiet about what happened while showing our group how to do their jobs. Red's working out how he can defuse paranoia before it gets dangerous." It leaned into her arm. "There's no reason to think you need to be worried for your own safety," it said. "But..."

"But I'd be pretty worried for yours."

"Yeah."

"Do you really think... I mean, how long have you known Blue, and Orange and the others? You really think they'd push you out an airlock, if they found out?"

White made a short, mirthless laugh. "You've never seen what happens when impostors attack a crew. The answer is _yes._ And if we're all very lucky, I'd be the only one."

Cy shivered. White's posture softened, and it ran a hand over her shoulder. "Try not to worry too much about it. Red's managed suspicious crews before."

Cy made an unhappy noise. 

“Think about what we’ll get to do on Polus,” White said. “You’ll get to walk around outside. See some weather. Eat vacuum-sealed, reheated real food.”

“Heh. You’re just trying to distract me. What about you? Are you looking forward to Polus?”

“Oh, yes,” White said. “A little more space will be welcome. And I’ll have new places to catch you alone.” 

She felt something scritch at her ribs and yelped, pushing at Cy’s arm. She allowed White to distract her, the two of them chatting about inane things, fossils, and anime well past White’s “fifteen minutes.”

When there was a lull in the asteroids Cy stretched her wrist. "I keep forgetting to ask. Do those clicking sounds you make mean anything?"

"Ah," White said. "Yes."

"Is that impostor language?"

White looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure whether it counts as a real language," it said. "It's not very complicated, and we aren't taught it. We start using it as babies."

Cy perked up. "You were a baby?"

White put down coffee to look at her. "...Girl."

"Sorry, sorry, I meant, what do impostor babies look like?"

White tipped its head, thinking. "Like spikey octopus-starfish. Well- late-stage juveniles do. That's when we get most of our innate vocabulary. Before then we're more like pupa."

"Yikes, that's a dehumanizing word."

"Eh." It waved a dismissive hand. "Science."

She focused on the next barrage of debris for a minute. "So, does that mean you have um, metamorphoses? Like a butterfly?"

"Something like that. Newborns are almost completely helpless, they can click if they aren't comfortable, but not much more than that." White made a metallic _thhp-thhp._

"We go through a few stages of that, eating and growing, and each stage our vocabulary gets bigger. It's innate. We aren't taught how to make the sounds, or what they mean. We just know, like a laugh or a scream."

"Fascinating," Cy said. "So all impostors can communicate, no matter what languages they're taught."

"Yeah. We're not social to the extreme that humans are... but we do like to cooperate. There's a pleasure in getting a task done, whatever it is. So impostors put together and told to do something usually just do it."

Cy didn't want think about what that task probably was, so she went on, "Are the growth stages just size?"

"At first yes. Babies are very soft, and they will get bigger and bigger as long as they're given enough food; they're actually larger than juveniles right before metamorphosing, because the tissues are compacted when they're remade into hard structures.

"Juveniles can move around but can't see very well. We start learning languages and copying adult actions, if there are any around, but mostly we're leaning to control our body-shaping abilities. And then there's a final metamorphosis, and we're adults, and we don't have any experience but that's when we're usually sent to do things. At least, that's how I remember it."

"If you just fed a baby as fast as it could eat, how big can they get?"

"No idea, but I've wondered," White said. "I'm as big as they're allowed to get because humans wouldn't accept anyone larger than me, so such individuals are culled."

"Oh," she said, startled.

"The most common noise we make to each other," White said, before she could ask about that, "is-" and it made a very soft, sucking _tkk_. "’I’m here.’ It communicates... being in the same area together. It's a team-reinforcing sound, I guess."

Cy put her tongue behind her upper teeth and clicked.

White laughed, and clicked back.

"What about..." she tried to think, and made a _click, click, click,_ like an idling engine.

"That one mean's 'happy,' or 'content.' And if you layer it with..." it made the same click, with a second over top of it, “'satisfied, pleased.'"

"Oh! You can combine them?"

"Yes."

"What's 'angry'?"

"We've got-" _click_ "'irritated-'" _click, rasp_ "angry, and-" _click, rasp_ "aggressive,' and can specify it being in general, ‘I’m angry,’ or at someone, ‘I’m angry at you,’ ‘I’m angry at this.’" It demonstrated.

"I think I can hear the main sound."

"Yeah?"

"What was..." she chittered like a squirrel.

"Uh, haha, if you mean," it chittered like a deeper, more resonant squirrel, "that'd be something like 'excited,' implying anticipation."

"And, um, _shhhhhhhhhhhhhhwwwwt ssshhhhhhhhwwwt shshshshshshshssssshwtwtwtwwtwt_?"

_"'Oh, baby, you're so fine, I want to breed you so good you'll need crutches.'"_

Cy choked on her coffee. "No. No, it fucking does not!"

"There's some nuance lost in translation but no, that's pretty much exactly what it means."

"Fucking incredible. I'm so glad that ones a lingual constant."

"It's an important word!"

They went back and forth, White demonstrating the stridulation s and suserrations he’d developed as a child, translating their meaning as best he could. Cy couldn’t layer the noises together, and there were some sounds she couldn’t make at all, but she found she could replicate most of the basic noises well enough for White to understand them.

“Ah, the wonder of the human mouth,” it mused.

 _Happy_ , Cy clicked. 

_Content._ It took her hand, and Cy felt warmth stirring in her chest. I’m here.

_I’m here._

Someone coughed behind them.

Cy and White jolted upright, twisting to see RedCap framed in the doorway. His hands were curled loosely into fists, his shoulders squared.

"What's going on in here?" He asked. His voice was dangerously even.

White and Cy looked at each other, shoulders hunched like dogs caught raiding the table.

"We, um. I'm doing asteroids, and," Cy stuttered.

"Just stopped in for a..." White tried at the same time.

"White." The veneer of calm was out of Red's voice. "Don't you have some _tasks_ to do?"

It was only because of how well Cy knew it that she caught how White flinched at that word.

"Yes, Captain. Right away, Captain," White said. It stood, hovered an instant at Cy's shoulder, and left the room.

RedCap watched it go with a steely glare, and turned the same on Cy.

Cy looked back at him with round eyes. It was a side of Red she'd not seen before... and didn't appreciate. Her expression set.

"Cyan, walk with me," RedCap ordered.

“Sir, the asteroids-”

RedCap cleared his throat.

"Yes, Sir."

He led her to the bridge, eating up the hallways with a determined stride. Cy kept up with him, thinking through what had just happened.

It was the first and only time White's great size had looked clumsy, when it stumbled out of the room.

Cy looked sidelong at her Captain, and felt her own shoulders stiffening.

RedCap gestured to his desk as he locked the door behind them in the bridge.

"Please, sit."

Cy obeyed, and Red sat opposite her.

His expression was closed as he regarded her a long moment, and then he reached up and thumbed the catch to his helmet, removing it. After a second Cy did the same.

"Do you know why you're here, Cyan?"

Cy knew the answer to that question. "Why am I here, Sir?"

"Guess."

Cy drew breath and hesitated.

Red's expression softened a little. "Alright, let's back up." He considered. "What has White told you?"

Cy's anger fizzled into stress. "Um. That you know."

"That I know what?"

"That he's... He told me about how you met."

"You can say the word."

Cyan licked her lips. "That he's an impostor."

“Do you know what that means?”

“That… that he’s an alien?”

“He told you that?”

“He showed me.”

“He showed…? Mm.” Red leaned back, relaxing a little. "Alright, good."

"Sir?"

"If White had lied to me about telling you, we would have had a problem."

Red dipped his face, rubbing his eyes with a gloved hand. Cy was still trying to read the room. She was off-balance, unsure what, if anything was a secret, unsure what RedCap wanted, and angry at the memory of White skulking off like a kicked dog.

RedCap finally looked to her. “You understand that normally I would not meddle in the private lives of my crew, so long as your work is getting done, and you are one of my star crew members, Cyan. But I don’t need to tell you that there is nothing ‘normal’ about anything involving White.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Are you comfortable?”

“Sir?”

“If White is coercing or intimidating you, or even pressuring you, in any way, I want to know about it.”

“Oh! No, no.”

“You’re comfortable with him?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Has frightened you?”

“White has been proactive about not doing things to frighten me.”

“That’s not a ‘no,’ officer.”

The staccato interrogation had her off balance, and she took a second to gather her thoughts. “It scared me when I first found out,” she said, honestly. “Since then, no.” She looked him in the eye and said, “I trust White.”

Red studied her expression for a few seconds. He nodded slowly. “If, at any time, you are anything less than perfectly comfortable being around White- if he does or says anything at all that makes you anxious- you come and tell me. That’s an order.”

“White wouldn’t-” she started, but caught herself. There was no question that Red trusted White. He wasn’t concerned about that; he was concerned about her. Her anger cooled a little. “Understood, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

“White’s… body… causes amorous feelings in people,” RedCap continued. “You understand that during such occasions you are experiencing impaired judgment and lowered inhibitions, and may do things you would otherwise not be comfortable with?”

“Uh….” Cy pictured fractals, pufferfish, and ice cubes, willing herself not to blush. “Yes. We um. We communicate very clearly outside of those events, when our heads are clear. Sir.”

“It’s none of my business what the two of you do together on your own time,” RedCap said. “It is my business if either of you ends up getting hurt because of it.”

“I understand.”

“Which is why, Officer Cyan, I don’t want to hear any more _god damn clicking on this ship. _”__

__Cy sat up, stricken._ _

__“You were making impostor noises with the door open where anyone could have heard you.” RedCap rose, standing over her so Cy cringed back in her chair. “Of all the brainless, _reckless,_ idiot things, Cyan!”_ _

__“I- I didn’t realize anyone might…”_ _

__“You can’t know what anyone might recognize!” He clenched his fists. “People talk, rumors spread, people hear things. _Someone_ somewhere knows exactly what impostor clicking sounds like, and will remember if they hear it on this ship. White should have known better; I’m telling you this now before you make another stupid mistake._ _

__“In a crisis, a few clear heads trying to reason through what’s going on will not sway people who have already panicked. When shit goes tits up, people act on emotion, not reason. They’re not going to think about all the years they’ve spent with someone, or how to resolve this nonviolently, they’re going to hunt the monster. If it comes to that, and White gets accused, people are suddenly going to remember every little thing he’s ever done wrong. If the whole group turns on him, there’s nothing he or I can do to stop it. You’d vouch for him, and they’re not going to think you’re friends with an impostor; they’ll decide you _are_ an impostor. If the crisis continues after they airlock your boyfriend, they won’t even need to vote on it.”_ _

__He let his words sink in._ _

__“This crew is safe from White,” the captain said. His anger had drained, and in its place Cy felt a bone-deep weariness. “But he will not ever be safe from his crew.”_ _

__RedCap eyed her for a long moment._ _

__“Understood, Sir,” she said softly._ _

__He closed his eyes and sighed. “Just be smart, Officer.”_ _

__“Yes, Sir.”_ _

__“Dismissed. Get back to work.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't express my thanks enough to you lovely readers. We'll be getting back into the heat of things soon, until then, your interest in my characters and worldbuilding has been incredibly supportive.   
> Now please watch this video about mammals that stridulate to communicate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9kJKu4cpXM


	8. Mind-Bending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's binge some anime.

Cy’s tablet buzzed.

_Let me know when you're done with work, if you'd like to hang out,_ texted White.  
_CYAN: Are you still busy?  
WHITE: Going to keep working until you're finished_

Cy grimaced. She hoped White hadn't been stewing over RedCap's scolding all day.

_CYAN: I'll be done by 1900  
_WHITE: Your room or mine?  
CYAN: I'll come to you  
WHITE: :sparkle: :dinosaur:? :popcorn:?  
CYAN: :polar_bear: :blue_heart:  
WHITE: :white_heart: :blue_heart:  
CYAN: :octopus: :eyes: :lick: :sweat_drops:  
WHITE: Hey, now _ _

__

__

__

__

__

__

Cy still felt the sting of RedCap's dressing down, more so since it had been fair. She threw herself into her work, knocking out enough chores to make up for a RUD and then some, leveraging shame with labor like a good little capitalist Catholic. She sighed in relief when her watch beeped, and headed straight for White's without bothering to get changed.

It met her at the door, towering and welcoming and folding her into its arms.

"Here she is," it crooned.

She laughed, squeezing back. "Hey, you."

"Is everything alright?" White held her at arm's length, searching her face. "What did Red want?"

"Let me get this off," she said, reaching for her helmet. "Ah, that's better.” She shook her hair loose, sucking in the fresh air. Cy unzipped her suit to the waist, shrugging free, and massaged at her shoulder.

White cocked its head, touching her hand. "You need a rub?"

"Oh, would you? Thanks, neck has been killing me the last two hours."

Cy plopped down to sit cross-legged in front of the bed, White sitting behind her and cupping both shoulders in its palms.

"Mmm." Cy sighed, relaxing into the touch. "Red gave me a dressing down for reckless endangerment."

"What?" White sounded alarmed.

"It's okay, he didn't court martial me or anything," Cy joked. "Just made sure I understood how serious it was to keep things with you discreet. And he wanted to check that everything between us was on the up and up."

"Oh," White said. A smile cracked through its voice. "Well, good."

She moaned openly as White's fingers dug at the knot in her neck, and White laughed.

"Sorry. I can't remember the last time someone gave me a massage."

"Please, don't apologize," it said. "It's rewarding how responsive you are."

Cy settled back against its shins. "Well, you give me a lot to respond to."

A tendril ruffled her hair, making her laugh.

"How are you doing?" Cy asked more seriously.

"I'm fine," it said.

She glowered. "I didn't like how RedCap talked to you."

"Ehh." White sounded embarrassed. "I was behaving stupidly. He had a good reason to be frustrated."

"I know," Cy said. "But I still wanted to yell at him. Nobody gets to talk to you like that."

"Aaaw, Cy." White sounded touched. "You were going to pick a fight with the big boss to protect me?"

"I know he meant well, and he was right to scold us, but. Yes. Absolutely. Wanted to take him behind the woodshed for that."

White made an affectionate noise that eased some of Cy’s resentment. 

"So... no more clicking in the hallways," Cy said at length.

_Sadness,_ White clicked.

_Sadness. ___

__"You know you're mimicking a mimic?" it pointed out, smiling._ _

__"So I am." The idea made her grin. "How's my accent?"_ _

__"You sound like a hillbilly."_ _

__"Like a hill-! Oh, that hurts."_ _

__"A click-hick."_ _

___"Uncalled for!"_ _ _

__It made a soft, happy noise and worked at her shoulders. Cy felt the day’s tension melting away, sighing as she was finally able to relax. For several minutes they sat in quiet, enjoying each other._ _

__“I should have mentioned Red and Black knowing about me much earlier,” White said._ _

__Cy blinked, realizing she’d started to doze. She looked up. “Hmm? Oh… I guess, that would have saved me some stress today.”_ _

__“There’s something else you should know,” White went on. “Something I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone about, but if you find out about it, and know I knew about it… I’m afraid it would hurt you, thinking I was hiding it from you.”_ _

__Cy stretched her neck and sat up straighter. “Okay…”_ _

__“It doesn’t have anything to do with you,” White said. “I promised to keep it a secret. But I would rather break my word about that than have you feel like I was being dishonest to you.”_ _

__Cy frowned, brows knitting. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with me?”_ _

__“No. It shouldn’t.”_ _

__“Are you cheating on me?”_ _

__“ _Hah!_ As if. No.”_ _

__“Are you cheating on me _emotionally_?” She asked suspiciously._ _

__“As an impostor it’d be a much bigger deal for me to be as intimate with someone as we are without your permission, than if I was to go jump in a heat orgy. So no, absolutely not.”_ _

__“Is it something dangerous?”_ _

__“It shouldn’t be.”_ _

__Cy pursed her lips at the floor. “You’re not giving me much information to make an informed decision.”_ _

__“It’s personal information about one of our crewmates.”_ _

__“Oh...” She thought. “Nothing to do with me and not dangerous, though?”_ _

__“No.”_ _

__“Okay. I guess, if you think I don’t need to know about it, then I trust that.”_ _

__They fell into silence, Cy thinking through that the information could be while trying not to guess about it._ _

__“What are you smirking about?” Asked White._ _

__“I’m picturing stupid things the secret could be.” Cy shook her head, changed the subject. “I nearly forgot. I did have something I meant to ask you about.”_ _

__“Anything,” White said._ _

__“Black told me…” how had he put it. “That there were two kinds of alien? I think? But he didn’t tell me more than that. That there are people like you, and another people who… ‘breed’ you? And send you onto spaceships?”_ _

__White was quiet for a few seconds._ _

__“Is that… is that true?”_ _

__“Yes, it is.”_ _

__“So when you said that babies are ‘culled’ for being the wrong size… it’s by some… other… by another kind of alien?”_ _

__“I think so,” White said. “They might be like us. -Me, like me. But they don’t shift in front of us, or talk using our sounds. So they might be something else.”_ _

__“You don’t know?”_ _

__“I do not. They manage our nurseries, and when we’re new adults they give us simple tasks. ‘Learn this. Go here. Disrupt this mission.’”_ _

__“That’s all?”_ _

__“Basically,” White said. “I’ve met impostors whose parents bred ‘in the wild’, so to speak. And the… and _they_ contacted those ones as well, if they were needed._ _

__“Black said that mimics like you are, um, ‘disposable.’”_ _

__“Oh, yes.” White nodded. “Very high death rate in young impostors.”_ _

__Cy frowned, looking over her shoulder into its placid face. She couldn’t parse the idea, that White’s people were _bred_ , raised and thrown at a problem like trick ponies. That that was why they were compliant, that was why their bodies were so well suited to infiltrating human ships, that was why they could communicate without language, signal each other at once. “There has to be more.”_ _

__“I’m sure there is,” White agreed. “But I don’t know. No one I’ve met knows. We’re taught to mimic humans, we’re taught a few human languages, and enough of their language to receive their assignments, and sent out. If we’re successful, they send us somewhere else.”_ _

__“How do they contact you?”_ _

__“I don’t know,” White said again. “I…” at last, the idea seemed to trouble it just a bit. “I honestly don’t know, Cy. I think… I hear them? It’s been. A long time, for me. The last times, I ignored it. Nothing happened.”_ _

__She sat up straighter, alarmed. “You’ve heard them, since- since you stopped? Changed?”_ _

__“Yeah. I just… ignored it.” White shrugged. “They have no shortage of bodies to throw at their problems. Best case scenario, I’m dead to them.”_ _

__“Does that scare you?”_ _

__“No.” White put its hands on her shoulders, possessive. “They tell us what they want us to do but they never _talk_ with us and if they put a hostile impostor on this ship…” White made a rumble so deep and threatening that Cy started. “...It wouldn’t be the first time I cleaned up for Red,” it finished._ _

__Cy leaned into White’s knee. “Does that bother you? Thinking about… I mean. I mean being- _bred_ , by someone? That you were… just…”_ _

__White made a low, affectionate noise, stroking her hair. “No, Cy.”_ _

__“No?”_ _

__It gave her head an affectionate pat. “Existential crises are a problem for humans,” it said with levity. “Someone set me up to do something for them a long time ago, and I decided to quit, and now I have a home, and friends, and someone amazing to watch anime with after work.”_ _

__Cy looked up at White, trying to imagine really, truly not being bothered by knowledge like this. Living entirely in the moment, happy with what it had, the machination of others be damned._ _

__“You wanna watch the next episode?”_ _

__“Yeah, let’s do that.”_ _

__White pulled her into its lap, making an arm rest of one bent appendage. She got comfortable, rolling her tenderized shoulders, and took out a protein bar. As she snacked Cy felt White's pharynx creep up over her thigh, and every few bites she held out a piece for the delicate chelicerae to take. She realized during the second episode’s end credits that she had begun to pet it, like a cat, but as White didn't seem to mind, she didn't stop._ _

__Halfway through the season, White meshed its fingers over her stomach and Cy settled back against it. She’d finished her bar and the pharynx nibbled at her wrist, inviting her to open another. In the corner of her eye she saw White looking down at its own feeding organ over her shoulder, and the nibbling stopped._ _

__“Was that okay?” White asked._ _

__“Hmm? Yeah, why?”_ _

__White looked at the pharynx on her knee and the jointed leg she reclined against as if it hadn’t realized they were out. “It’s still strange to me that this doesn’t repulse you.” White looked away. “Especially considering the first time you saw them.”_ _

__Cy thought back to that first time, lying flat on her back as this creature slit itself open above her. Had she been afraid then? She’d been plenty afraid in the weeks after that, but at the time she could only remember being… horny._ _

__“Umm… I was afraid of getting attacked by an impostor,” she tried to explain. “And it was kind of mind-bending when you first showed me things in here, because I didn’t think things like you were real. But… you haven’t done anything threatening since then. I’m not afraid of this stuff,” she gestured to his body, “because you I’m not afraid of you, anymore.”_ _

__White processed that in silence. Then, “May I put a tentacle around you?”_ _

__Cy smiled. “You don’t have to ask.”_ _

__The pharynx flexed to allow for White’s thickest tentacle to emerge, nosing its way around Cy’s middle and pulling her into White’s chest. “It’s mind-bending to _me_ to think I could ever do this with a human without terrifying them,” White said quietly. _ _

__Emotion tightened Cy’s throat, thinking of the years White had lived on this ship, suspected by Black, supported by Red and keeping itself under wraps, seeing itself through human eyes to catch and suppress any behavior that might be taken as frightening._ _

__White said, _content.__ _

__Cy thought if she felt any more feelings she was going to start tearing up. “Hey,” she said, poking its chest. “Keep trying to seduce me, but I know you only like me because you think I’d be a good mother.”_ _

__The tension broke as tipped its head back to laugh, shaking their bodies with the force of its mirth. Cy laughed with it, pushing her cheek into the visor, but White wasn’t done with her._ _

__“I like you because you're intelligent, you're always thinking ahead and planning. You're kind and patient and work hard to make sure everyone is doing their best. You get so excited when you learn something new, and you can't contain it, and try and find someone to share it with and you don’t even try to hide your passion.”_ _

__“Wh-” Her mouth worked, trying to make words. “White, you can’t just say things like…”_ _

__"And I _love_ you because when you saw what I was, even thought you were afraid, you didn’t run away and you didn’t try to have me hurt. You wanted to learn, and you let me show me more of myself, and you gave me the chance to earn your trust.”_ _

__Cy felt like a mule had just kicked her in the chest. “…White did you…”_ _

__A tendril flicked out and tickled her behind the ear. "And I also think you'd be a good mother, which is why I want to lay eggs in you."_ _

__The tension shattered into cackles as she tried to shove it away and the tentacle held her close. “You’re the _worst!_ ” She spluttered. “You can’t just… _ugh,_ White…!”_ _

__“Shhh, the midseason finale is starting.”_ _

__“Whi- hey!” She tried to twist around to look at it, and found herself trapped in its embrace._ _

__“Anime time,” White shushed._ _


	9. Cruel and Vicious Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know you've all been waiting for a closer look at that ovipositor ;)

White finally released Cy to turn around and jabber about the final episode. They talked together, White enjoying her passion even though they’d both seen it before, listening until she wore herself out and was relaxing in its lap.

“You know,” White said eventually, “just because I’m ‘cold’ at the moment, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself. I know how you humans enjoy sex in all seasons.”

Its word choice made Cy snort. “It’s no problem,” she said. “I can handle that.”

“I was thinking more about handling you myself,” it said. Fingers played over her wrist. “I’m not sex-repulsed while I’m like this.”

“Heh, aw, that’s generous,” she said, flustered. “But, uh. Um.” She thought of how to put it. “I don’t think I’d enjoy myself knowing you weren’t into it.”

“You don’t want to become my favorite task?”

“ _God_ , yes that exactly,” she laughed. “I can’t imagine something less validating that being somebody’s maintenance chore.”

“Don’t think of it like that,” White said. Its pharynx hooked a mandible over her pinkie. “Think of it like the shoulder rub. I liked being able to do that for you.”

Cy hadn’t thought of sexual favors that way before. “Does your body even, um, work when you’re not in heat?”

“I have all the parts, remember. They work, but they’re less sensitive and I don’t experience desire. However, I have two perfectly capable hands and as many limbs, tongues and tentacles as you could request.”

“But your ovipositor’s not into it?”

“Let’s say all of my attention would be on pleasing you.”

Cy pushed back into his chest, making a noise of self-conscious affection. She thought about it, stroking the pharynx. 

“Actually… there is something I’d like to try.”

“Yes?”

“Uh. But you might not like it. If you don’t like it, or get bored that’s okay. We can just cuddle.”

White was interested. “What did you have in mind?”

“Lay back for me?”

White untangled itself from her and leaned forward. Its O2 tanks shuddered and opened into the four massive crablegs making up the frame, the contents of tentacles spilling out and stretching before it lay back on the bed. Cy re-positioned so she was kneeling straddling White’s lap, and scooted back to sit just above its pelvis. Something moved under White’s skin to support her, and she ran a palm over the bottom of White’s stomach, between its hips, and over its crotch.

“Oh,” White chuckled, trailing a finger down her spine. “You want to handle _me_.”

She continued to play at the spacesuit material, tickling and massaging at the soft tissue beneath it. After a minute the skin shivered, and a shallow part opening under her touch. Cy circled it with a finger, then hooked her thumb in it, giving a little tug. The faux-canvas parted, and she looked down at the tip of the retracted ovipositor, the folds and protrusions of its sex canal.

She looked over her shoulder. “May I?”

White nodded, and Cy ran a feather-light touch over the finger-like nubs covering the head. They didn’t respond at first, but a moment later she saw them shift. Cy did it again. A nub turned, seeking her hand. She placed her palm over the head, pressing into it, then began to circle the nubs. 

“That feel okay?” She asked.

“Heh. Yes.”

Cy continued, stimulating the crown until she noticed it had begun to protrude, the thin layer of lubricant thickening. It was growing more reactive to her touch, twisting to meet her fingers. When several inches had slid out Cy cupped the head between her hands, thumbs stroking firmly in short, quick moments.

“Oh,” White said as its knees stiffened.

“Is this okay?” Cy asked, looking back at it. White nodded again; she noticed its visor had slid up a crack, the tips of tongues visible. “Alright,” Cy said. “You can put your hands on my hips, but I don’t want you to touch me other than that.”

White’s head cocked. The tentacles that had already been moving towards her drew back.

Cy grinned. “Think you can control yourself?”

White scoffed and pulled its appendages further inside the maw. “I am a bastion of self-control.”

Cy’s grin broadened. Challenge accepted.

She returned her attention to the ovipositor, coaxing it out inch by inch, until the whole length was bunched up against her thigh. It was soft and silky, a pale flesh-pink against the red of the maw, and fluted up its length. A flange began at the base of its head, running along the underside and splitting into two that flanked the base of it, attaching at the abdomen. These were fleshy and soft, not erectile like the projections of the crown, or the innumerable little bumps studding the distal third of the organ. The whole of it was secreting lube, but it was thickest around the nubs. As she ran her thumb through the lubricant, feeling the texture over her finger, it was impossible not to imagine how it would feel inside her.

Cy squirmed.

The crown had opened, exposing a pillowy-soft, triangular tip. The nubs undulated, reaching back for Cy and rubbing circles of slick into her hands. She squeezed it rhythmically, alternating a firm grip and light strokes, and was rewarded by White’ grunting.

Cy released the head and put the heels of her hands at either side of the base, running a few deep, slow strokes up its length. White’s hand had slid up, fingers cupping her belly. The ovipositor was beginning to twitch, doubling back to rub against itself.

Cy administered a flick to one nub, making White yelp. “None of that,” she chided. The organ straightened out, but she heard White’s low noise of frustration. 

Encouraging.

White’s knees bent, feet dividing into toes that gripped the mattress as she explored, tickling the flange and tapping at the nubs, running her finger along a fluted indentation, ringing the opening at the end. Cy took hold of the ovipositor midshaft in one hand and reached under it to touch the ceiling just inside the sex canal, making White inhale. She pressed her knuckles into the soft tissue where it flowed into the ovipositor and massaged. White winced and pushed into her touch, whining. Cy’s hands were slicked to the elbows; she caught the head again and clamped down; it thrashed, trying to push into them. Cy released it and sat back.

After a few seconds White lay still, hissing under its breath. It had started to click and rasp, not as passionately as during a RUD but still letting her know that her efforts were working. A tentacle crept into her peripheral vision, hovering as if to touch itself; Cy gave it a cool stare and White pulled it back with a muttered apology.

She grabbed the ovipositor and began to work it with both hands. White melted under her, knees jolting. Cy could feel the wicked grin on her face as she gripped it just behind the head and ground the heel of her hand into the tip.

“Cy!”

Cy let go.

“ _...Cy!_ ” 

She looked at the member throbbing between her thighs, barely able to resist frotting itself. Cy waited for White to cool down, ovipositor drooping onto the bed, before teasing it with a soft touch near the base. It jerked towards her, questing. She felt a growl rumble through White’s body, and scooped up the head again, turning it around for a closer look and scooting forward so the base butted against her own groin.

“More?”

“Yes, please.”

She fingered the place where the flange began, finding a soft, sensitive spot that made White squirm beneath her. “These little bits at the end seem to like me,” she said as they groped at her hand.

“I don’t have… mm, voluntary control of those. They’re for… massaging the relaxant into, tight spaces,” White managed.

“Hmm. Useful.” Cy shifted to close her thighs against the shaft, picturing this flanged, fluted, flared organ nosing at an entrance, preparing it for a railing, feeling a reaction in her own _tight spaces_. She was drawing tighter and tighter rings around the opening in the head, noting the thicker, milkier fluid that oozed up when she squeezed it. Cy capped it with the pad of her middle finger, then bent the digit to slide in just a bit.

White produced a muffled snarl. Cy waited, then pressed in again. Lubricant slopped between her knuckles as she experimentally fingered the opening.

“I’ve… Nuh. Mm. I’ve never had a partner do _that_ before,” White said. Its fingers were digging into her hips.

Cy tilted forward to press into the ovipositor, still thinking about how this thing must feel going wild inside of someone. “Do you like it?”

“It’s intense.”

“Bad?”

“Intense.”

“Should I stop?”

“Please don’t.”

Cy stuck out her pinkie and probed, White’s body undulating in response. The internal walls of the ovipositor were impossibly silky, oozing a substance she realized must be the ovary-equivalent of pre. For a moment she just watched as a bubble rose from the opening, rolling down the edge of the ovip, mixing iridescent spirals into the colorless lubricant. She caught it before it could drip free, and touched her fingers to her tongue.

It was an odd flavor. Orange-peel bitter, slightly sour, and faintly metallic.

Cy pulled her finger out of her mouth so quickly it made a low _pop,_ realizing what she’d done. “What would happen if your muscle relaxant got into somebody’s mouth?”

White grunted, sliding its hands up to mesh over her tummy, trying to slide the ovip through the fingers of her left hand. “I’m not sure,” it said.

There would be time to think about that later. She clamped down on the base with her thighs. White moaned. Cy gripped it mid-shaft in both hands and began twisting in opposite directions. The loose end went absolutely wild.

“If you can’t keep quiet,” Cy said, not letting up, “we’re going to have to stop.”

“-No! I’ll be good,” it said, voice muffling.

She looked back and sat up a little straighter. White’s body was coming undone, spikes rising on the skin, tentacles and crablegs and all other manner of grasper spilling out of its maw like a wildwood, some anchoring it to the mattress, other flailing and twitching through the air. The helmet was shattered, glass-tipped mandibles churning around a mess of tongues, into which White had jammed one of its own tentacles to stifle the noise.

“Jesus,” Cy muttered. She looked back down at the organ she was playing with, color in her cheeks.

And sped up. 

Cy slowed as its whines reached a fevered pitch. She teased White with light touches until it was hissing, then she bore down with her thighs and pumped, hearing the noises rising in pitch, watching White’s hands spasm between bestial and human, resisting the need to touch itself.

“Getting close, please don’t stop,” White told her. “Ah- aaaaaa…”

Cy stopped.

“Cy!”

She held her hands up to either side of the ovip, watching its desperate wriggles, hearing White’s frustration in two languages. 

“ _Cruel_ ,” it scolded.

“I want you to come,” Cy said, enjoying the show even more than she’d expected. “But then I’d have to stop teasing you…”

She placed two fingers on the tip of the ovip, lifting her hand as it thrust upward, denying it deeper pressure. She put her palm over the tip and White shoved its pelvis upward, lifting her, trying to grind into her hand. When she took her hand away it sagged, panting, and she did it again.

White’s thighs quivered as it resisted another thrust. “At least let me wrap you up?”

“No.”

“Why are you being so mean to me? Vicious human… Are you all like this?”

“I saw something like this in porn,” Cy admitted. 

“And you thought you’d do it to _me_?”

“I always kind of wanted to try but you just have so _much_ real estate to stimulate.”

Their bodies shook with White’s miserable laughter. “Turning my own anatomy against me. I see. I see. Please go back to touching me.”

“I might. If you promise not to come until I say you can come.”

“I’ll try. Please touch me.”

“You’ll _try_?”

“I won’t come! I won’t come until you say. Please!”

She gave the head a squeeze and she thought she heard White jamming more appendages into its face to quiet the moans. They were past the point of needing deep strokes; her impostor was going to pieces over the lightest teasing.

“Slow down,” White gasped as she administered more light twists. “Slow down, slow down…”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a ‘bastion of self control?’”

“Ah. Mm. I was, but then… this cute com- mm. Cute communications officer… ”

Cy snickered. “Okay, okay.” She reached under the ovip, playing with the soft flanges that circled the sex canal as White got a hold of itself. “Okay.” She was grinning, looking away, suddenly self-aware of what she was doing, what White was letting her do to it. She looked back at it again, a horror-film mess she’d made all by herself. “Okay. You can come.”

It took scarcely three touches to bring White to completion, the ovipositor thrashing against her thighs, thrusting into her hands. The crown of finger-like projections pulsed around the head, opening and closing thrice before the opening began to contract. She had the shaft in both hands and felt the first egg pass, bursting from the tip in a splash of iridescent goo.

“Fuck,” she remarked. White’s head bent around, pressing into the palm of her hand and she felt the next egg smack into it. White’s shuddering noises might have implied agony as the contractions wracked its ovipositor, egg after egg forced up and expelled from the tip. Cy had no words for the emotion in her chest, a mix of euphoria, smugness and possessiveness, watching her boyfriend coming into her hands. She counted three eggs, four, five-

Cy corked the opening with her thumb. White snarled, body jerking, and the ovipositor gripped and shoved at her finger with powerful, rhythmic contractions that nearly pushed her finger out and instant before she felt the egg. 

White groaned. “What are you doing?”

Cy didn’t answer, slowly allowing the egg to nearly slip free, stretching the opening to let it pass… and she pushed it back in.

White kicked, bouncing her in its lap. “Was t-this in that porn you watched, too?” It bawled.

Cy took her thumb away and the egg almost escaped before she caught it on her middle finger, pressing it back down as deep as she could reach. She nearly lost her grip on the ovip as the end jerked. She held it down, head spinning at the intensity of White’s reaction, and finally pulled her finger free, the last egg smacking into her chest. Cy gave a laugh of triumph.

As White shuddered and mewled Cy looked down at her arms and the legs of her suit smeared in slick, at the ruby eggs thrown haphazardly around the bed, and the ovipositor curled up and trembling. She felt White relaxing, and experienced what she could only imagine was post-nut clarity.

“Oh,” she mumbled. It was as if a light-switch had come on, illuminating something shameful. “Um...”

After a minute more White pushed itself up onto its elbows, catching its breath, and slid her down to its lap to sit up.

“Um,” Cy said again, as a thousand years of puritanism caught up to her. “Was… was that okay?”

“Permission to touch you?” White asked gruffly, and a grin came into its voice as it added, “...mistress?”

_“OhmyGod,_ don’t call me that.” She couldn’t cover her face with so much lube on her hands. She looked up at White over her shoulder; it was starting to look like a man in a spacesuit again. “That was okay, right?”

“Yes, Cy,” White said. Two arms and uncounted appendages found their way around her body. A low, rich, satisfied sigh. “That was. That was _new._ ”

“It didn’t hurt? And it wasn’t…” It was the same wordless discomfort she’d experienced in the showers, when White had seen she hadn’t finished undressing. “I haven’t… that was new for me, too. It was okay?”

“ _Yes_ ,” it said emphatically. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning into it. “It’s- society. Like now I think you think I’m…”

“A good partner?”

“I know. I know it’s stupid. But I still feel it.”

White began to sway, working out its own energy and soothing her with the motion. “Is it me you’re worried about? What do you think I think you are?”

Cy bit her lip. She laughed a little, hearing how it sounded to say it out loud. “Like I’m dirty or slutty or something. Yeah, I know, I know you’re a sex-crazed bang monster every couple weeks with no sexual hangups. As if you would judge me for giving a hand job. I know it’s not rational.” She looked down as the ovipositor between her legs began to retract.

“No, it’s not,” White agreed. It ran its fingertips over her cheek and she leaned into its palm. “You have nothing to be self-conscious about.”

She nodded into White’s hand, feeling its strong limbs around her. After a minute she felt a tendril kiss at her ear. “No one’s ever played with me outside of heat,” White told her. “I didn’t realize I could still ejaculate.”

Cy smiled despite herself. 

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think I may have to keep you.”

She laughed, relaxing a little. “I guess I didn’t do too bad, for my first time edging a guy?”

“Was that your…? Oh, I’m _flattered._. And no… but we’ll need further experimentation to support the hypothesis.” 

“It was awfully kind of you to donate your body to science.” She wiped some of the lubricant off her hands, thinking over what had just happened. “You’d like to do that again? I um. I really liked playing with you.”

A pleased click. “See, now you’re thinking like an impostor.”

That made her break into a grin. “How do you always know just what to say.”

“It’s a gift.”

“Oh- you made a new sound,” she said, remembering. “What was…” Cy squinted, trying to remember, and forced air between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. “No, it was…” she tried again, producing a high-pitched noise, like a mouse squealing.

“Oh, aha, that’s…” White produced the sound, ducking its head, and confessed, “we usually use that when we’re fighting. It means something like... ‘I yield.’”

A laugh burst out of Cy’s chest. _“Oh!”_ she explained, breaking into mirth. “I _see!”_

“You like that, huh?”

The stress was making it funnier, Cy struggling to contain her laughter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were trying to tap out on me.”

“I could have told you in English but. I didn’t actually want you to stop, did I?”

“Good, because I… I mean of course if you really wanted me to stop I would, of course, but… I would have been awfully disappointed,” Cy confessed.

More tongues played with her ear. “I don’t get pinned very often,” White told her. “Not unless two or three impostors gang up on me, since I’m bigger than almost everyone I’ve ever met.” Its thick, course fingertips grazed the back of her knuckles. “You immobilized me with a sentence and one flick of your finger.” Cy was already feeling giddy from its words and White pressed its helmet to the back of her neck, breath scalding, and rumbled, “It was _hot._ ”

“Aaaaa,” Cy said, squeezing its hand. “I don’t… uh… I’m not really used to being like this.” A nervous giggle. 

White gave her another squeeze around the middle, holding for several seconds, meaning it. 

“How are _you_ doing?” it said. “You need me to return the favor?”

The experience had been arousing, but Cy didn’t want to do anything but sit and be held by her boyfriend a while longer. _Content._

White chuckled, enfolding her in a few more sinuous limbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow is my birthday, and so I have posted this chapter as a gift to all of you, my wonderful enablers. I’ve always considered myself to be sex positive, but this year was really a turning point as I’ve begun dismantling the ugly stigmas against sex (especially het sex) that I've been carrying for so many years. Researching for and writing this fic, I hope I can continue to share my thoughts and feelings on friendship, love, romance and pleasure through communication, intimacy and unbridled xenophilia.  
> Thanks for reading.


	10. Bechdel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legalese is hard to read, Blender is fun to use and everything is proceeding as scheduled.

Cy flicked a finger over her tablet, scrolling through a labyrinth of legalese. 

Had it really been eight months? Cy tried to think. Time on the Skeld raced even as it stood still, the result of endless, repetitive workdays. Looking through her contract, she was remembering that first month, before everything became routine; working so hard to make a good impression on the woman who would be senior science officer when they arrived, being so formal with RedCap, sitting through Lime’s conversations, hanging on Orange’s every word as he taught her to do wiring. The Skeld had seemed huge, romantic with mystery; space was a terror just outside the hull, and Cyan a tiny, drifting fragment of the universe.

It seemed the human mind really could get used to anything.

She found what she was looking for.

_Section 23, Clause 2, Subclause 2_

_Employee acknowledges that his/her breach of the above will cause irreparable damage to the Company. Therefore, if Employee breaches any non-disclosure obligations, MIRA shall have the right to request Employee cease breach immediately, and to immediately cease payment of any unpaid portion of compensation. If the loss suffered by MIRA is deemed to exceed Liquidated Damages Amount, Employee shall compensate MIRA for excess amount. Both Parties agree that any economic costs paid by MIRA in relation to investigating, handling or correcting Employee’s breach (including but not limited to: attorney fees, litigation costs, assessment fees, investigation and evidence collection fees, etc) shall comprise important parts of MIRA’s actual costs._

_MIRA retains the right to investigate employees expected of a breach. Employee shall answer inquiries related to...”_

Cy’s eyes nearly rolled back in her head. She swallowed as financial and legal threats were tossed around carelessly, the section ending with a space into which she had penned her own loopy signature. 

How many times had her parents warned her about assuming a contract was just a formality and that people would be decent humans? She’d tried to read and understand all this, she really had… it was just so _much..._

Not that it really mattered; if Black was to be believed this little cluster of paragraphs was what was protecting MIRA from accusations of ignoring impostor attacks, and keeping White safe. Cy, of all people, wasn’t about to go blabbing about her alien friend.

A musical little _ding_ dragged Cy’s eyes off the tablet. The specimens had processed. 

Cy sat up straighter, noting which vial had returned a rusty hue. Green and Pink had made it very clear that she wasn’t allowed to do any real lab work after the first time she dried petri dishes with a paper towel and gave a false positive, but they let her record whether a sample turned pink.

It was bizarre to think that, in a couple days, she would be answering to Green as Chief Science Officer, and Red would be… Red would just be the man who had driven them to Polus. If the eight months in transit had nearly come to an end- those endless days blurring together- how quickly would two and half years of active work pass? Then they’d train their replacements, and eight months home again with Red, Blue and…

Cy swallowed.

Upon arrival at a station, _most_ passenger vehicles spent a full month of “shore leave,” giving the ferrymen a chance to rest and relax as the science team trained their replacements. With the Polus team so drastically reduced, MIRA had granted them extended time, which meant they had at least a few more weeks to convince HQ to allow White, an experienced ferryman and long-time Skelder, to get transferred for work on Polus.

And if they couldn’t…

Cy chewed her knuckle, and reread her contract.

Transportation costs to and from stations were covered by MIRA. Employees were technically allowed to break contracts and quit at any time, but, unless they could afford _their own personal space ship,_ would remain on ships or stations until the scheduled end of contract, during which they would be billed for all resources consumed.

MIRA was one of the smaller, scrappier companies that had gotten its fingers in the space-exploration pie, saving on costs by sending long-term missions into the ass-end of nowhere, where resources were unconfirmed and free-space rights hadn’t been bought up by the Big Three.

Lime had explained how companies on Earth could _own outer space and the planets therein_ several times, and Cy still didn’t get it. All that she could retain was that MIRA was a third-rate explorer that cut costs by hiring small, multi-talented crews for long-term contracts to self-sustaining stations and getting them there in rundown junker spacecrafts. 

It was why they had spent the last eight months in these _infernal_ enviro-suits, and why they had spent the last eight months awake.

MIRA could replace old craft with safer, more reliable, newer models… or require their crew to be fully prepared for a crisis at all times, “just in case.” It was win-win, really: not only did they save on the ships, the insurance for a crew decked out in life support was significantly cheaper than the alternative.

Hypersleep, on the other hand, was more of a gray area in the minds of them all. Sure, Lime talked _at length_ of the sixteen months of life he wouldn’t be getting back as MIRA paid him to eat, shit, and redo their wiring, but even he, she imagined, would hesitate before bedding down in a cryo-tube.

Deep sleep technology just wasn’t there yet. It could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in food and housing for a crew, which wasn’t enough to balance the costs of life insurance for something that had a one in fifty chance of euthanizing you.

The Skeld was outfitted with 4 cryo-tubes which, as far as Cy was aware, had never been plugged in. They were for hitting pause on someone who had sustained a life-threatening injury and threatening Orange when he was caught bloviating without a single task on his chore list completed.

Cy fed the next flight of samples into the science machine and looked over to where Purple was cleaning glassware. It looked like tedious grunt work, but Green and Pink maintained that sterile, inert glassware was a requirement for accurate results, and being permitted to prepare it was a much higher honor than anything Cy was allowed to do.

Cy wanted to blame Purple’s glassware privileges on having hooked up with the microbiologist, but she knew even randy young Pink would not break the sacrosanctity of lab equipment for a friend. Besides, once you’d shown Purple how to do something right a few times she was very good with maintaining attention to detail. Didn’t let the drudgery of repetition crimp her quality unlike some Browns and Limes Cy could mention.

“Hey, P,” Cy called. “Yellow showed you how to use the 3D printer, right?”

Purple finished rinsing a test tube in acid and water, moving like she was performing a ritual rite. She placed it in its drying rack before looking up. “Yes.”

“Do you think you could teach me how to use it?”

Purple brightened. It wasn’t often someone was asking _her_ how to do something. “Oh, yes! What did you want to make?”

“U-um.” She should have anticipated the question; Cy scrambled for something an astronaut would want other than sex toys. “Brown’s room looks so fun with all the figurines, I wanted some decorations for my bunk on Polus.”

“You’re not supposed to use company resources for personal reasons,” Purple said. It sounded like she was quoting someone, and she followed up with, “Yeah, I can show you. It’s pretty easy, just follow the steps. Are you using an existing pattern, or did you make your own?”

“Existing pattern… I didn’t know I could make them myself.”

“There’s an app you can get on your PDA,” Purple said. “It lets you design stuff! Here, look…” She took out her tablet, opening a program. “I just started learning this after Captain Red showed me the printer… I don’t print them but…”

She turned the tablet around, flicking through images. 

“...Oh,” Cy said. She blinked; it was 3D models of idealized food. “You said just started? This is pretty good!”

“Thanks, I’ve been watching cooking shows. I’ve never really cooked, and we don’t have real food so I can’t start.”

Cy smiled at her. This was a side of Purple she’d managed to miss in all their months together. “I never realized you were the creative type.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” Purple said. “But that was a problem, so I’m trying to get better.” Purple stared down at a lovingly rendered layer cake. “Orange said I might be able to make some of these from the stuff on Polus. Since there’s a garden.”

Cy recalled the revelation that she’d been the last to notice White’s interest in her. What else had Cy failed to notice about her colleagues over the eight month flight? 

She was going to have to be better than that, if she wanted to be happy on Polus. Pay better attention to what the others were up to. “You make meals like this for the crew and we’re all going to be your best friends,” Cy said.

“Like Black and alcohol? I asked him to show me how he makes that, he said he’s keeping it to himself because it’s his only leverage to get people to like him.”

“What! Black said that? Oh, no…” Cy put Black’s name at the top of her get-to-know-better list. “That does sound like the sort of blunt, strategic thing he’d say, though.” 

Purple was paging through her gallery again, and turned it around to show Cy one painstakingly shaded Cheetoh. “Pink make me print this one and drop it on the table in front of Lime while he was eating some.”

“Oh my God. He ate it, didn’t he?”

“He tried.” Purple radiated unbridled pride in herself. “And then he told Red I was abusing the printer, and he took away my printer privileges.” 

“Okay, that’s amazing. Not- not that you lost privileges, but I wish I’d been there to see that.” Cy opened her hands, gears turning in her head. “Listen, what you need to do is just use the one fake food on Lime so many times he doesn’t go for it, and then offer him real food, and when he refuses, everyone eats it in front of him,” Cy said. “We used to do that to my dad. Chocolate-covered Orbeez.”

Purple’s eyes widened. “Whoa… did he court marshal you?”

“My dad? Fff, no! But we didn’t have to share candy with him for a while.”

“Wow… I’ll… I’ll keep working,” Purple said, inspired. “I’ll make something even more convincing.” She looked back at her PDA. “I haven’t gotten to try most of these,” she said. “My parent didn’t branch out much with what they fed me. Have you had…” she pulled up a trio of macarons, velvety and in different colors. “One of these? They’re supposed to be notoriously hard to make… you have to get the crunchiness and softness just right, and if you live in a place with the wrong humidity they’re just about impossible. I want to find out why they’re worth so much trouble.”

“I… have not,” Cy realised. She frowned at the lovely cookies. “I’ve seen them in shops, though, they’re always pricey. What makes them special?”

“The texture… and they’ve got a delicate flavor from the almond flour.” Purple licked her lips. “Someday, huh?”

“When we’re back on earth, we’ll get macarons,” Cy said. “Find us a genuine French patisserie and try every flavor they’ve got.” 

Purple looked at her with such excited puppy eyes that Cy felt bad for her. What had this girl been fed her whole life? Frozen fish sticks? She couldn’t go another thirty-eight months with nothing but MIRA protein gruel on her palate. “On Polus, I’d love to show you what I know about real cooking, if we’ve got anything to work with. I’ve seen gastro-astro blogs about gourmet food using the stuff available in space. Maybe we could make a feast? Turn it into a double date with White and Pink to show off?”

 _“Oh,_ ” said Purple, with feeling. “Yes, I’d like that.” She looked happy as a kid, invited to make cookies with mom. “I’ll look for blogs like that, we can… you can show me how to do it, and if you want anything custom from the printer…”

“Could you teach me how to use that app?” Cy had a few dozen newfangled ovip toys for which she held a scientific interest, which had not been on the free database.

“I’d love to! You have time now?”

The samples went unsorted as Cy and Purple poured over their tablets. The march of science was just going to have to wait.

_Kind eyes, _thought science officer Cherny, as he looked at the man in the transmission.__

__He was visible from the chest up, dressed in captain’s reds, neat and commanding. With his helmet off Cherny could see the worry lines and dark circles of a man who lived in the sunless day/night cycle of space and managed the lives of people in a hostile land._ _

__He looked experienced, Cherny thought, more than capable of making a hard call or enforcing his authority._ _

__And he had kind eyes._ _

__“You understand I am prohibited from disclosing details surrounding the recent occurrences on this station.” Cherny thought his voice would crack, talking to a real live new person after all this time, but there was no emotion in his tone._ _

__Captain Red nodded. “I have been made to understand the situation has been handled, and science team exchange should proceed as scheduled. You three are still able and willing to perform orientation with the new science team?”_ _

__“We are,” Cherny said. He closed his eyes, breathed in, and admitted it. “It will be good to talk with people again.”_ _

__The captain nodded, sympathetic but stern. “I understand your position, officer. I assure you, my crew shall ask no prying questions. I am required to report any action in violation of Section 23 leaked to my own people.”_ _

__“You don’t have to worry about that.” Cherny smiled. He hadn’t realized he still had it in him to look relaxed. “You’re the angel coming to get us off this frozen rock. We won’t be making any trouble.”_ _

__“I’m sure the transfer will go smoothly, and we’ll be getting you, Officer Krasny and Senior Officer Korechnovy on the Skeld and headed home as soon as possible.”_ _

__“Thank you, captain. We await your arrival.”_ _

__“ETA Sunday the 16th, 0300 hours. Signing off.”_ _

__“Thank you,” Cherny said again. “Signing off.”_ _

__Cherny stared into the black abyss of the dead screen for several long seconds after the transmission was cut, imagining he could still see Red’s face. Now he was off camera, he could feel anxiety stirring through him; speaking to someone normal was…_ _

__Cherny swallowed, muscling down the reaction. No time for that. Polus was no place for that._ _

__He found Krasny at the telescope, gazing into the night sky as though he could see the incoming craft._ _

__“They’ll be here early Sunday morning. Everything proceeding on schedule.”_ _

__Krasny looked at him. It struck Cherny how different he looked from the captain; his face too young, eyes too bright for the horrors they had seen._ _

__“Good,” was all he said._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot? In my porn? :`[
> 
> I’m so pleased to finally introduce you the boys on Polus! They seem nice.


	11. And All of the World was Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title was "Upper Engines." This one's for you, Moo <3

In White's earliest memories, it had been blind.

Soft bodies pressed around it. Something would move over them, touching them and feeding them, digging them out from under the weight of the others if they clicked. Warmth, and comfort, pressure, and touch.

All of the world had been touch.

White could recognize a heat coming on up to an hour or two before the first physical symptoms, because it would begin to think about other impostors. _Think_ about them. Intrusive, distracting thoughts of how much it would like to say howdy.

All these years it fantasized about impostors, and now it was thinking of Cy.

By the time White was in the ducts under Upper Engines, it was feeling obsessed.

Cy.

Cyan.

Little Cy. _White's_ Cy.

Cy, who White still couldn’t accept was not afraid of it, who had responded to every bit of itself that White had shared by asking for more.

Cy, who had _seen_ White, one of only two living humans who had, and asked to see it again.

And then had asked to touch it.

White’s usual battery of sensory organs was feeling inadequate. The empty spaces were filling inside its maw as tactile organs shaped themselves into being. When it got a hold of her...

White had researched copulation in _Homo sapiens_ and other terrestrials since its first mission on RedCap's ship. They spent enough time obsessing about it that White's ignorance would have been out of place, so it'd learned enough to blend in and left it there for years and years until Communications Officer Cyan had inspired within it a sudden interest in human sexual pleasure.

The most alien part of it, for White, was that the foundational impulse- that of partner-pleasing- wasn't present in humans. Whole genres of comedy dedicated to joking about partners being demanding. Sentiments of dominance and subjugation so deep-rooted they might be biological.

White thought they probably were. In a species where forced reproduction was viable, it made sense that a person might derive sexual pleasure and engage in sexual behavior completely divorced from the experience of their mate.

Forced breeding happened in impostors, but when White imagined having its way with a resistant partner, it was thinking of grappling, pinning, reaming and stuffing with eggs- all things White wanted to do because it enjoyed having them done to it. In a species that could terminate pregnancy at will, successful procreation required convincing one’s partner to accept you.

How _stupid_ , it had been, months ago; how terminally, unforgivably reckless, showing itself, jumping on a human with its grotesqueries on full display, thinking they might be lovedrunk on enough pheromones to submit, thinking it could silence them with pleasure, thinking Cy could be pleased into acceptance like an impostor. 

White wasn’t a juvenile. It had lived with humans for decades. It knew _better_ than that. It had traumatized someone whose culture- whole species- thrived on sexual violence, had outed itself as a foreign monstrosity, ruined all of RedCap’s labors towards coexistence and broken its relationship with the human it had come to adore in one stupid, _stupid_ , hormonal lapse in judgment.

And Cy had asked to touch it.

White was struggling to keep its maw shut. It needed to be with her. It must not scare her, not now, but it needed her, needed to be holding her, touching her, learning her body. It _needed_ to show her she had been right to trust it. White was losing itself in the primal desire of heat, struggling to maintain enough coherent thought to get permission. It kept its ovipositor tightly retracted, bearing down on it internally. The seconds past after White sent its message, and then Cy- she didn’t know it was here, she didn’t know it was so close-

CYAN: Yes yes yes

That was it. That was enough. But it wasn’t together. It would scare her. Again. If she saw it like this, primal, lustful… humans were such visual creatures...

Cy had sat in its lap and stroked its pharynx like a cat. She’d fallen asleep against its shoulder. She was learning its _language._

All its life, White had been stronger than everyone it met. But it hadn’t _felt_ strong, really understood strength, until that little human had relaxed in its arms.

It would show Cy it was worthy of being her mate.

Cy lay on her back beneath the engine.

There was no silence on the Skeld. Inside her suit she heard the background hum of the life support systems idling in her backpack; she was bathed in the tranquil white noise of the ship itself, quietly laboring through the void, keeping them all alive.

The Skeld had been enormous for someone who had only ever been on an airplane and then a shuttle; how excited she had been to walk these halls, stretch out in her bunk, luxuriate in the spacious accommodations.

In time, the sensation had reversed. She felt the Skeld growing smaller with every passing week, imploding down until they would be naught but a can of sardines drifting through space. 

On days like those, Cy would finish her work, and pour her free time into exploring. It didn’t seem possible that a ship which had come to feel so small could contain so many secret nooks, but one by one Cy found them, and the best of all, the place she’d go when she couldn’t stand the press of living creatures trapped with her in this limping vessel, was underneath the upper engine.

In that tireless hum Cy imagined the will of mankind, coming together to assemble a craft worthy of crossing the stars. She would close her eyes and picture the open abyss just meters below her back- novas and quasars and nebulae burning in silence since before she was born and for untold eons after she’d be gone.

Cy breathed in the hot, metallic odor of the engine, and felt connected to it all.

Several times Cy blinked herself alert; down here it was all too easy to fall into a trance-like state, and she did have work to get back to, she just wanted to make sure she remembered this, since she’d be disembarking so soon…

Cy lifted a hand, almost grazing the engine with the gloved tip of her fingers. This was as relaxed as she got on the Skeld, and gratitude bloomed through her ribcage as visions of stardust danced in her mind. She felt detached from the warm, soft animal of her body, flowing into the pistons and gears…

Her tablet buzzed. Cy caught her breath, blinking rapidly, spooked to think she’d dozed and missed the deadline on a chore. She shifted, pawing at her hip, and became aware of the warm desire bubbling through her abdomen. Cy’s brows knit, that was a new one… she got the tablet to her eyes and felt a tendril of peace and pleasure when she saw it was White.

WHITE: It’s time

Cy stared muzzily into the screen, trying to process the words.

WHITE: Want to play? 

Time… Cy’s eyes widened and she squeezed her thighs shut, putting two and two together. 

CYAN: Yes yes yes  
CYAN: I’m in upper engines  
WHITE: I know 

Cy’s head tipped, and an instant later she heard the bolts on the door rumble home. “Ah-” she nearly hit her head sitting up. “White?”

There was no answer. Cy started to scootch out from under the engine, and with a crackle the lights failed. Oh, no.

She lay flat on her back, breath elevating as her eyes adjusted. Red, green and yellow lights from the engine cast an eerie glow, enough to make out shapes. She heard the vent slam.

“White!” Cy scrambled out from under the engine, sitting up on her knees.

_Tkk._

Cy hesitated. _Tkk._

“Cy.” There was only one person whose voice could drop so bestial. Cy let out the breath she was holding.

“Christ, you scared me… What’s with the...”

“Please forgive me. I’m… Thought it would be easier. Want you. _Want._ ” Clicks and chatters underscored its words. “Cy… please…”

“You’re scaring me, just a little, White,” she said.

A harsh, exaggerated hiss. “Sorry. Should have spoken more… earlier… Cy…? Can touch you? Let me… let me hold you. Please.”

“Umm…” So many days of sitting with White, being held by it, talking and laughing and enjoying each other; she had forgotten _this_ side of it, and while she could feel the pheromones getting to work, she lacked the mind-dampening horniness of the times before.

A low noise, sounds of desire, pleasure, entreaty. 

Cy drew a slow breath, realizing that in doing so she was expediting her own arousal. “Um. Give me. Just a minute? This is kind of sudden.”

A low, wanting trill, but her eyes had adjusted and she could see the shape of it, crouched on the vent, overlarge, long, jointed legs extended from its back, maw parted into a dark slash through the pallid skin of its body. White waited.

Cy smiled, nervous. “Thanks. Um. I do want you to touch me, but- uh, just a second. Why did you… turn the lights off?”

White seemed to hesitate. “Too eager,” it said slowly. “Didn’t want to scare you.”

“You thought it’d be less scary getting surprised in the _dark?_ ”

“Not surprise you… you… see me,” White growled. “Too excited. Not… together.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten shy,” Cy said. “I thought body shame was only a problem for humans.”

“Not... body…” She could make out White’s shape, cringing, drawing its appendages in closer. “...Monster.”

Oh. 

“You think you’re going to scare me again?”

_Click._

“Get over her and hold me, White.”

It emitted a trill and stumbled forward, paws clamping on her arms firm enough to make her gasp. Cy grunted as it drew her away from the engine, still on her knees, enfolding her in those powerful limbs. It whined, sounding delirious, pulling her into its chest.

“Cy,” it said again. “My Cy…”

“I’m not scared of you,” Cy said, and for all it had just startled her, she meant it. The physical contact was echoing through her body, driving her arousal higher. “White..” she reached through the dark, cupping the cheek of its visor. “Some of the stuff you does scares me, but I’m not scared of you. You’re _my_ monster. Do you understand that? My beautiful, gentle, kind monster.”

She felt the shiver run up its spine, a storm of stridulations answering her words.

“Now…” She felt tendrils and tentacles beginning to bind her but she pushed them away from her chest. “I believe you mentioned wanting to learn my body?”

White’s spine straightened. “Yes.”

“You can see in the dark?”

“Yes.”

Cy’s shifted, freeing both arms from the tentacles around them, bringing her hands to her throat. She paused, ran them down over the seam, over the belt. Stopped. Fumbled until she felt the catch through her gloves, and disconnected it.

She was aware of White’s full attention concentrated on her hands. She let her thumb hover over the belt a moment, then dipped it under the waistband, releasing the trousers of her suit. The engine-warmed fresh air rolled over her skin as Cy pushed them down to her hips. She touched her stomach, feeling the edge of her undershirt, the band of her underwear. Cy swallowed, self-conscious under White’s silent focus, and pulled her suit up higher on her chest. She couldn’t see the view of herself in the dark, and drew in a steadying breath.

Cy reached for White’s shoulder, followed it down its arm, pulled its taloned hand to her belly. “Explore me.”

She felt White shudder. Both its hands were over her waist, cupping her, thumbs tracing over the exposed skin, raising goosebumps on her arms. White’s shoulder rippled, tentacles unspooling, coiling around her arms and neck. White cradled Cy’s shoulders and helmet as it lay her down, pinning her with its gentle, irresistible strength.

White opened her legs, moving forward so it knelt between them, bent over the pinned display of her body. Cy mumbled a wordless noise of anticipation; dread was pricking at the back of her mind and she found she was glad to be in the dark.

Then White’s hands were moving over her skin. The claws played at the hem of her undershirt before slipping over it, running up her back under the suit. Tendrils followed, piling onto her stomach before twisting and slithering, finding her hips, her ribs.

They were barely slick, the engine lights shining on them before they vanished into her suit; Cy felt the texture changing as knobs and nubs rose to rub against her, dipping below her underclothes, making her murmur. A thicker tentacle swept under her back, creeping along the skin, making the hair stand up on the back of her neck; it ran over her shoulder and pushed its way under her bra, curling over the base of one breast and tightening; she gasped when she felt the suckers take hold, dragging at her skin. 

“Oh…”

She couldn’t focus on her chest, because tentacles were pushing into her pant legs, wrapping and squeezing at her thighs, hooking behind her knees. More were running up her sleeves. She felt one pause as it found the rough scar below her elbow, felt another tapping at the mole under her collarbone. 

Cy tugged against White’s hold, wanting to push her hands into the maw, explore White’s body as thoroughly as it was learning hers. It held her back, clicking contentment, affection, and she arched her back, melting under the praise.

“Warned you,” White said. She could hear the smile in its rough voice as the knuckle of a crableg ran over her visor. “Didn’t I say I would be selfish…”

“I want to touch you.” Something heavy was rubbing itself on her calf and she had a feeling she knew what it was. “One hand?”

_“Later.”_ Its grip tightened, authoritative, untold numbers of tendrils examining her skin. “This is my turn.”

Cy eased into the hold as it worked over her ribs, her shoulders, her breasts. It was learning through touch, all focus on her, and despite the gnawing need growing between her thighs she thought she was going to drift back into a trance. 

“Have you done this before?” She asked, as something ran up the edge of one scapula. “With a human?”

“You’re my first.”

“You make me feel small.” Cy turned her helmet into the tentacle cradling it. “I didn’t know how good that could feel. It’s like… I can let go, because you’re here, and you’re strong enough to take care of me.”

The tendrils holding her froze. Cy blinked her eyes open, peering through the dark. She felt a tremor run through the impostor, and then it was leaning closer, holding her, hugging her, shivering. 

_Affection,_ it clicked. It was saying several things at once, too fast for Cy to catch. _Affection. Want. Pleasure. I’m here. Affection. Affection._

“Ah!” Cy struggled as it raised her hips and pulled them into its lap, movements urgent. It bent forward, enfolding her in its arms, caging her in crablegs, nudging and nuzzling her helmet. She rolled her hips reflexively, pressing her vulva towards its stomach, and moaned when she felt, _finally_ , the tendrils moving over her mons. 

“May I.. Can.. Cy, may I…”

“Yes, _yes!_ ”

“May I- Cy-”

“White. Christ. _Please_ fuck me.”

Trills answered her, White’s hands at the small of her back, lifting her even closer, tentacles spilling from its face, grabbing at her throat. She felt the weight and texture of the ovipositor dragging itself up between her thighs, slathering slick over her lips and slopping onto her stomach, blocking her view of its hand.

“Uh…” Cy blinked rapidly, trying to wed higher thinking with amorous abandon, but a tentacle had just tugged the crotch of her underwear aside; White’s palm trailed over her hip, down to play in the curls of hair just above her vulva, and she bit her lip. Those strong, thick fingers ghosted her skin, dropping low and rubbing the pad of a thumb to massage at her through the skin. Cy grunted, trying to push into it. White turned its hand. She felt its knuckles drawing over her pussy, skating over her lubricant. Its touch was far too light, and its tentacles tightened around her as she wriggled. 

White had begun to stoke her, three fingers one after the other, pressing the skin over and around her labia, her aching clitoris. 

“White… please…” All around her were its limbs and all she could think of was tentacles, pushing inside her, filling her.

“Patient,” White murmured. She whined. Then she yelped; White’s thumb had pushed inside, hooking just a few centimeters in and pressing into the floor of the canal.

_“Yes,_ more,” she pleaded, and groaned when White pulled back, rolling one labia between its fingers. A gentle squeeze. The ovipositor arched against her, rubbing at her ribs. She wanted to take it in her hands again, stroke and caress it until White was making its beautiful noises. Her fingers grabbed at the empty air, hips twisting into White’s touch. White’s fingers were playing around the entrance, teasing her, feeling the taught muscle just inside without penetrating her, exploring the folds. She could feel her lubricant rolling down her skin, moaned, grunted as one rubbery finger skated over her urethra and then White was at her clitoris. It pushed. 

Cy gasped, jerking away from the sharp, sudden shock of it, but immediately she was back, pushing forward for more. Her voice jumped an octave as White’s thumb circled her clit.

“Mmm.” White’s voice was low and rich, affectionate, and smug. “Like this part.” 

Cy couldn’t help it; she started to laugh, body shaking, sighing and whimpering as White stopped teasing her and lay a finger to either side of her clitoris to set a quick, asynchronous rhythm. It shifted, moving its other hand to press just inside of her, feeling out her walls, giving her just a taste of the fullness she craved. For several minutes they stayed that way, Cy’s pleasure building, White drinking in her twitches and noise, until she felt herself getting close.

“If I- _mm!_ \- tell you I’m going to, ah! -come, are you going t… to edge me?” 

Her words sent a chuckle through its body and a shiver through the ovip. “No. _Come for me.”_

Cy’s fingers dug into her palms as she crested, voice rising in wordless delight as the muscle spasm ran through her. It wasn’t the full-body experience of the time before, when she’d been bathed in hours of pheromones and ground against White with all she was worth, but this time there were White’s fingers, catching her, pressing into her so she felt her muscles squeezing against them, spiking the pleasure of each contraction, making her cry out its name.

She slumped against the floor, panting, eyes shut and a grin curling over her face as the pleasure rolled through her hips in waves. 

Before Cy could catch her breath thick, powerful tentacles were moving over her, drawing out of her suit, pulling her up by one shoulder, turning her, stripping down her pants, her boots, setting her on her knees, chest to the wall, White scrambling close enough to press itself against her back. Cy was dizzy, still riding the pleasure, moaning at the sudden contact as White thrust forward its hips against her buttocks, the wet head of the ovipositor shoving between her thighs.

Cy had been fingered before. Elation and trepidation rose as she realized what was coming next.


	12. Touch, Trust and Tentacles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consentacles you came here for.

White dragged the soft, static shape of Cy's body against itself, fitting her buttocks against its pelvis, bending forward to cup its open midline over her back, pulling its teeth down, letting its tongues explore. Only the thin shell of her suit was between them, and White was inside that, searching, holding, touching, _touching_ , questing over warm, perspiring skin, direct contact, intimacy.

Cy's body was _alive_. Heart chambers filling and slamming with the force to drive oxygen down to her toes, the rhythms of peristalsis, the rise and collapse of her tidal breaths as White stoked her closer to bliss. There was _pleasure_ there, in holding her. In knowing her breathing rate and pulse, the sweat on her skin, the fluid drooling down her legs and the high, the helpless pitch of her voice were acts of White's creation. 

Cy’s body was heavy, weighed down with muscle and flesh that could not shift and rebuild; molded into the permanent shapes White had spent its life striving to imply beneath its suit-canvas skin. It dug the pads of her fingers into her, feeling the skin and fat below, the taut muscle underneath; feeling the hard knobs of bone where they ran shallow, playing at the sparse, delicate hair over her limbs, rolling over the contours of her stomach, nestling in the grooves of her ribs. _Flawless._

White unhinged its mandibles; it tightened and shaped the contents into tongues to probe and nuzzle over her helmet, wishing it could caress her, taste her, learn her face. White wanted to strip off every shred of synthetics until Cy was as unguarded as it was, pull her into its maw and hold her tight and secure, fill her up and _fuck_ her, feel her voice vibrating through her skin, wanted to feel her body yield, respond to it, receive it, receive its eggs. Love her so well and so thorough she hadn’t the strength to stand, wash her in the peace and contentedness of bearing a brood.

Cy grunted, and White realized its hand had found her stomach; it had been grinding the heel of one hand over her slicked abdomen, too hard. It stopped at once, turning its hand to graze the area with its knuckles, kissing at the nape of her helmet.

White's ovipositor _ached._ It had partially retracted, teasing the need with the squeeze of White's internal pressure. White thought of Cy's dexterous, clever hands, working it to climax _twice_ , oh it _wanted_ to give her her hands free but it was still White's turn, and White's turn was all about Cy.

White grazed a thumb over her pubis, dipping lower, testing the area just above her mons. 

She’d teased it over the size of its genitals but White had been baffled at the size of hers; so little! Such subtle, cryptic responses of the body to indicate arousal, pleasure. It demanded White’s attention; it was going to do this right, and that would mean paying attention, discovering what made her body react, catching every twitch and murmur it could inspire. 

Cy sighed, shifting into White’s thumb, and it gave her a few light, testing strokes. After orgasm, it knew, humans could be sensitive; when Cy gave no indication of discomfort White slid two fingers down, flanking the clitoris and curling to enter her, sliding its middle finger into the well-lubricated canal and pushing sharply into its ceiling.

Cy jolted and gasped, scrabbling at the wall.

"Hurt?" White withdrew.

" _Wow._ No. Good."

White pushed its fingers together, squeezing her clitoris and pressing circles into her g-spot. It was rewarded with a snarl, and obscenities religious in nature.

White's free hand was at her hip, it roved down, gripping into one buttock before sliding up her back, under her shirt, following the rise and fall of her backbone, ghosting the scapula and hooking over her shoulder. White pulled, raising Cy to sit up straighter, and moved forward, pressing her chest and stomach into the wall, dragging one arm behind her back, the other wrist pinned in front of her face. Cy wriggled, trying to get her knees under her. The hold would be overwhelming, claustrophobic... and as near to vent sex as White could create.

"Cy," it growled, tongues glossing over her visor. Her labia and sex canal were impossibly silky to its touch, the heat astonishing, every fold enticing. White planted its long, jointed legs against the ground, pushing itself harder into her. Her body was moving, trying to get comfortable but held fast by the power in White's hold and the pleasure of its play. White got a knee between her legs, pushing her thighs apart. Felt her ribcage expand. It lifted its ovipositor, swollen and dribbling, and ran it over her vulva, slathering her, letting her feel its ridges and bumps.

Cy gasped, trying to twist around, trying to see. Sudden doubt stabbed at White’s thoughts; it was going to scare her, it was too big, too alien--White snapped its mandibles over her helmet, holding her in place. Cy yelped, but its fingers were still at work, distracting her, keeping her panting. Pressed bodily against her, it felt the tension enter her shoulders and knees. Higher thinking filtering into her lust. Afraid. 

Of _course_ it had scared her. Of course, of course, it was too big, it was a monster, it needed her to relax, needed her to know she was safe. Show her it was strong enough to protect her, attentive enough that she could submit to its hold. A searing, wet blast of breath rolled from its gullet, fogging Cy's helmet, White tightening its appendages on her chest and stomach, fingers going still. _"Trust_."

A few moments of panting, a tremor through her knees, and its felt its partner try to relax. "I do," she managed. "But, mm…"

It was listening, but it had begun to move its middle finger again.

"I um. Haven't... haven't been with anyone, in a while," Cy said. White concentrated, making itself focus on her words though all it wanted was to feel the vibration of them. "And you're... ah... ff- fffucking _enormous_."

White wrapped one of its tentacles around the collar of her suit. It needed her to know it would _take care of her_ , it would be worthy of her trust, worthy of making her feel small. White curled its ovipositor away, hand opening and cupping her vulva, possessive, protective. Cy groaned, straining against it. 

"I _want_ you," she said piteously. "I want to feel you inside of me... But I'm..." a short laugh, "... _small._ I just think... I don't think I could... and you…"

"Shhhhh." White ran the tips of its claws along the edge of her visor. "Know. Know humans are smaller. Patience. Be patient? Cy?" It gripped her hand, her delicate, dexterous hand in its glove, holding it against the wall, giving her something to hold. "Have time. All the time in the worlds, to make this work."

A few more heavy breaths, and she nodded into the wall. “Okay,” she whispered. It heard her swallow, felt every goosebump that rose down her back and over her arms. 

White wound a tentacle over its ovipositor, giving itself a few quick, deep strokes. It grunted in pleasure and hooked its ovipositor over her thigh, rubbing itself, producing clicks of enjoyment. Cy emitted a nervous chuckle.

The tentacle, now coated in its muscle-relaxing lubricant, was the same one White had produced for her months earlier; the one that Cy had asked to touch, that it had curled around her boot. The sensation of her fingers closing when it had been laced through them was embedded in White’s muscle memory; it was time to repay something meaningful.

White bend the tentacle double, moving its hand aside to nudge at her clitoris with the blunt loop, circle it, and slide between her labia. 

It wasn’t thick nor firm enough to offer much stimulation, but felt Cy’s spine straighten. “That’s. Oh.”

White nuzzled her and she sighed out the breath she had held, laughed. Sounded scared, and thrilled.

It rubbed at her, massaging in the lubricant, and it unfolded, the tip elongating and narrowing. It was barely the width of one of her little fingers, tapered, and White found the opening to her sex canal and slid it inside.

“Ah,” Cy said. “...Huh.”

“Okay,” White rasped.

“Yeah, okay,” she said.

There was no girth to fill her, but White was exploring. She was the tightest just inside, a ring of muscles forming a low ceiling, pinching off the entrance. White wriggled, fluttering over the tissue, blending its own lubricant into hers, testing sensitivity, making her giggle.

“More than _that_ ,” she said.

“Patient,” White reminded her. It wormed in further, followed the walls until they bent sharply upward and terminated at the cervix. Cy hadn’t been being modest; she was much, much smaller than any of White’s other partners.

The tentacle relaxed, shortening and thickening, feeling her out, pressing here and there into her walls. That tight ceiling just inside had her biting her lip- White knew it was rich in nerves, part of her clitoral complex; it would be paying that part more attention shortly. The walls were producing lubricant almost on a level of White’s ovipositor, so its tentacle slid over her effortlessly, finding each fold in the vaginal walls, caressing the protrusion along the top. White pushed more inside, shortening and thickening again, just enough for her to feel its girth. It slithered up, brushed over the closed ring of muscle. Probed into the corners where the canal ran deeper, and began to massage at the thicker lubricant along the cervix’ edge.

Cy blew out her breath slowly. “You’re… finding stuff I didn’t know I had. Mm. Oh… What _is_ that…”

“You’ve been wasted on humans.” White was feeling an incomparable smugness, a pride and privilege that it could be the first to touch Cy like this. It drew the tentacle back, pushed into one side of the canal, pushed in more, doubling over, looping. Filling up the space with its coils and making them thicken. White felt the folds flattening, stretching to take more. The mass shifted, moving and bunching to accommodate more and more of the length, building an expanding, firming knot. Cy was making lovely little mumbles and grunts, the tone of her noises uncertain, filling White with pleasure. 

“Tell me,” White said gruffly. It was working another loop into her, making her voice tremble.

“Hh… huh?”

“Tell me how I feel inside you.”

“Ah…” Cy’s hips were shifting, trying to accommodate more of the tentacle. “You’re hitting places I didn’t know about,” she said. “It’s… it’s new. It’s a lot. Different. Mm-”

White’s arm dropped down, hooking her knee and raising it against her chest, setting her off-balance and underscoring the totality of its hold, opening her hips to take more. Cy’s voice trembled. 

“Going to find every place your partners neglected,” White promised. 

She laughed, sighed. “I think I’ve… been abducted by aliens.”

“Heh. Just the one.” White hissed when it felt her bear down on it inside her, the canal tightening around it; it could only imagine what she was going to feel like on its ovipositor, muscles tightening… It tentacles shifted, squeezing her, massaging at her breasts and thighs. Noises of pleasure from both of them.

“God, you’re spoiling me,” she puffed.

 _“Good.”_ White pressed its fingertips into her labia, pushing its tentacle harder against her, brought them together, pushed inside, hooked and dug into her g-spot.

Cy jolted, and a second later White set the full mass of its tentacle wriggling.

Her every exhale came as a cry of excitement, body bucking under the stimulation. White let her squirm on its tentacle a minute longer, and then it slid out, letting the tentacle shorten, softening and thickening, and pressed it back inside, the girth shoving White’s fingers harder into the bundle of nerves as the it filled her up, testing her limits. 

“Oh, oh wow, you got thick fast,” Cy bawled. “Ah!”

White had found just the girth and firmness it wanted, and let its tentacle bloom with ridges and nubs, grinding them into her walls, pivoting. It moved its fingers, experimenting with pressure until Cy whined, and then it began to thrust, pushing in and expanding to stretch her, arching into her walls, twisting on the way out.

“Give me- give- _fuck, Christ-God-_ give me something to hold onto,” Cy begged, and White’s crablegs were there, enclosing her like the bars of a cage, smoothing to offer her something to grip. White shivered ecstatically at the sensation of her clinging to it, the sounds of her pleasure filling the room. Lubricant pooled on the floor under its ovipositor, White’s hips twitching as the organ throbbed, rubbing it against her legs. It put its arms around her waist, pulling her against itself, hugging her with its open belly and chest; it could feel her getting closer and closer, the tension in her knees, building in her thighs; lifting her voice; White was speaking, rasps and clicks urging her on, tentacle working her hard and fast, and when it felt the muscle contractions rip through her it roared.

.

The tentacles slackened. Cy brought shaking fingertips to the side of her helmet, stunned, an aftershock shuddering through her body, ears still ringing with the echos of White’s voice. That had been- she’d never- she’d only ever come from clit-stim in her whole life, was that a-

Once again her thoughts were jostled aside as tentacles grabbed her elbow and hip. Oh, White was going to wear her out, wasn’t it… She was too breathless to protest White turning her to face it, gathering her in its arms and lifting her off her feet with no evident effort at all. 

It stood; two long, muscular tentacles from White’s lumbar curled behind Cy’s knees, dragging her legs around its waist, binding her to it. Jointed legs and tentacles were meshing into a sling behind her back; she felt her shoulders hit the wall and White leaned down, that glassy, golden visor filling her vision. It was so strong, it was manhandling her like a doll, and she didn’t want it to stop.

Two of its meatier tongues drooled out from under the visor, caressing her helmet. One nestled into her collar, the other slipped down, found the hem of her undershirt and jerked upward, pushing aside fabric and suit so Cy felt a shock of cool air over her chest. 

White planted one broad hand on the wall behind her head, the other was at her side, tentacles moving aside to give it space. A thumb learned the contours of her ribs, the fingers played behind her back, and then the hand moved upwards, brushed the underside of her breast. Her right breast was still held by its tentacle and this bore down, suckers tightening on the skin, possessive. 

Cy whimpered, feeling her legs trembling, an indescribable sensation of delicious weariness blotting at her mind. She tried to speak but there was nothing coherent, only noise to tell White what it had done to her.

White’s hand was in no hurry. She’d invited exploration, and it was getting its money’s worth: lovingly, relentlessly examining the prize it had brought to exhaustion. Fingertips ghosted over her skin, raising bumps around the nipple that White caught between its knuckles, pressing down into the soft mass below, pinching. It released her with a tug, let its hand draw a slow caress down her side, over her navel, up again to cup her breast, squeeze. Cy went limp in the hammock it had made her, grateful for the breather and quivering. Cy wanted to ask it to take off her helmet, feel its fingers over her lips, pressing onto her tongue, caressing her cheeks; she hadn’t the breath to speak.

The ovipositor curled lazily, dragging itself from between her legs, splaying over her bare stomach and leaving glistening slick on her skin. 

“Wait…” she tried to say. She remembered how it had moved under her hands, how it had flexed for her, writhed, how those open nubs had worked at her fingers…

Cy bit her lip, emitting a grunt as the knobby tentacle slid out of her. At once she felt the ache return, the need, she looked into the visor, desperate. “Please...” 

White’s hips moved, and she looked down as the ovip twitched and began to retract, rivulets of lubricant running down either side of its sex canal until just the triangular head was visible. Cy made to speak, but caught her breath when White shifted, lining their pelvises up. Its left fingers flexed, releasing the wall and finding the back of her neck, holding her in place. Her head spun with desire and apprehension, and then the fingerlike projections that crowned the ovipositor found her.

“Oh,” she sighed. “Oh…”

It was psychological as much as physical. The touch was lighter than its fingers had been, but so _many_ little nubs moving against her, massaging, exploring, rubbing lubricant into every fold with a single-minded eagerness. Several of them had found her clit and were drawing spirals into the tissue around it, bringing tears to her eyes. Cy craned her neck to see; her vulva was eclipsed entirely by the tip of the organ exploring it. She swallowed; the sight of its girth was enough to cut through her lust as she realized all this time White had been playing with her it had been neglecting its own arousal.

“Go… just… go slow,” she said.

Fingers moving behind her head. “Trust me?”

“Yeah,” she breathed, “Ye- oh!”

The tip had pressed into her, sinking several centimeters into her body before it met resistance. From the impostor there issued a low, deep groan of pleasure.

“Ah, ah,” Cy mumbled. “White…”

More limbs were moving over her, pinning an arm, curling over a breast. For a few seconds they managed to distract her, but White was holding a constant pressure against her entrance and she gasped as she felt the muscles yield.

The sounds of enjoyment from White were almost as electric as the sensation of its flanged, nubbed head entering her. 

“God,” Cy said, “God, you’re…”

She felt the moment the crown passed through the entrance into the looser space beyond and huffed in relief, the intensity easing. White gave her a moment to catch her breath, and the ovipositor pulled back, making her wince, and penetrated her again. Cy swore and gnashed her teeth. The tapered end of White’s ovip was soft, yielding, but still so _thick_ , stretching her, significantly more substantial than the tentacle before it. White drew it back, holding the full length in its body, and then began to pump, just a few inches at a time, driving in and out of her fast as a flicking tongue.

Cy cried out, gasping and cursing as it shoved its hips forward, pressing into her pelvis, pinning her harder against the wall. Its voice and its clicks were broadcasting the pleasure it took from her body, making Cy feel elated and dizzy even as her knees went weak.

“Is it… too much…” White managed.

“No, I want more, I want… more…” Cy panted, pushing back. “Go… hah… I can take… more –Ah!” She wailed as it accepted the offer.

White withdrew, knobby head twisting, feeling out the space, exploring her inner walls. It hadn’t hurt, none of it was painful, but it was borderline, it was intense.

“Cy.” White’s hand left the wall, clapped heavily to her helmet and gripped it. Its face was closer, tendrils spilling over her collar, a tentacle tightening around her neck. Its voice was higher, crooning. “Cy… you feel… incredible… Your body… just perfect...”

Cy whimpered, not believing that she could be pleasing White within a fraction of what it had done to her. “I don’t… I want… more of you,” what was she saying, she couldn’t possibly take much more but… but.... “I want all of you, inside me… please…”

“Sweet girl,” White crooned. Tongues and tendrils kissed over her visor, her collar. “Dear Cy…” And it was shallow again, pounding in and out of her, making her scream. It was too much and not enough; it was stretching her, filling her, pushing the boundaries of what she thought she could handle. It was patient- _too_ patient for Cy’s pheromone addled mind- giving its lubricant time to work, letting her body adjust. After a minute of pumping it was back past the entrance, the head twisting, bending, probing the space, trying to double over, testing her capacity. It was _im_ possible, it couldn’t fit, but she _wanted_ more, wanted White to fill her with the whole of its length...

Cy gasped as the thrusting stilled, and White let its ovipositor slide up deeper inside her; she felt it bottom out, twist… and then she felt those finger-like protrusions, searching, massaging, and a deep broad sensation in her abdomen. 

“White…!”

“Slower,” White said. “Slow breathing.”

Cy swallowed and obeyed, drawing in a long, deep breath that caught as the ovipositor continued to work at her cervix. The touches were light, industrious circles; behind it was the tremendous sense of fullness, the ovip filling her. Smaller tentacles were at her back, rubbing over her stomach, her nipples, teasing at her collarbones inside her suit. Cy closed her eyes, breathing, feeling it.

“Are you going to lay eggs in me?” she asked softly.

White’s breath came out in a long, slow exhalation. “Want to.”

Neither of them spoke as it held her, as its ovipositor worked, as her body began to open. She could feel White’s breathing change, matching her own slow, steadying breaths. She felt how it shivered, controlling itself, letting her body set the pace. 

They hadn’t talked about this. They didn’t… didn’t _know_ what would happen, if, if...

“Slow,” White reminded her. And then, “Scared.”

Cy inhaled. “Yeah,” she said. 

White’s low, longing hiss made her shiver. If White wanted to _make her_ \- and there was part of her brain that was kind of into the idea- but if it tried, there wasn’t anything she could…

“Enjoy them.” White’s supplicating voice cut through her tangled thoughts. “You’ll enjoy them.” It took her wrist in one taloned paw, gripping her. Moved a hand over her stomach, pressing, making her moan as it added to the pressure of the ovipositor inside her. “Cy…” it keened. “Make you feel good. Enjoy them. Peaceful.”

She believed it, she wanted to believe it, but… Cy grunted and arched her back as the ovipositor slid back from the cervix, leaving only the head within her. Cy groaned, frustrated, aroused, scared and ashamed. “White, I’m sorry… I’m sorry...”

It hissed in displeasure, startling Cy. 

“Sorry…” she said again.

White’s body rippled, enfolding her, bearing down on her with that deep-tissue pressure that made her feel so safe. White gathered her in its arms, straightening, pulling her hard into its chest, she tightened her legs around its waist, arms encircling the broad rib-cage, lacing through crablegs. “Sorry…”

 _“Stop,_ ” White ordered. 

Cy bit her lip, shivering. “I want to do this for you,” she said. “I’m... scared, but I want to do this for you.”

White held her, quiet. It seemed to be mulling it over. 

Cy caught her breath when the ovipositor began to move. It slid up, grazed over her cervix, and began a rolling, pumping rhythm that made her back arch.

“S-so?” Cy panted. “Are y- _fuck, oh my God, White-_ are you going to…?

A growl was her only reply as White continued to fuck her with feeling. Cy’s head tilted back, eyelids fluttering. White’s hips were grinding against her; it didn’t need to be moving them at all, the ovipositor was more than capable of pumping on its own, but the movement let Cy feel its power, jostled her against its sling so it held her attention.

“I’m. Mm. I’m close. Getting close,” she babbled. The white-hot build of arousal through her clitoris was making it hard to think.

“Look at me.”

A hand caught the edge of her helmet, tipping her face up. Cy’s eyes popped open. White’s helmet had been shattered to fragments, a snarl of glass-tipped mandible and slithering tongues.

“White…”

“Keep looking at me.” A shard of the visor was intact, tongues bunched around it, undersides studded in teeth. “I want you to look at me as you come.”

She felt the tremors start in her knees, the wave building, warmth through her pelvis; Cy rocked her hips into White as the ovipositor continued to rail her, flecks of slick splattering over their stomachs. Cy stared deep into that bit of glass. She took long, deep breaths, each one deepening the sensation, until with a last thrust she was pushed over the edge.

Cy screamed, back arching, fingers digging into White’s biceps. The hot tension exploded into a cascade that shuddered through her, muscle tightening around the ovip, contracting so hard she thought she’d see stars. White’s thrusts continued, barely slowed, each warm, delicious spasm against its girth shooting up Cy’s back and making her moan. Her knees around White’s waist seemed to liquefy as she stared through the dim lighting into White’s face, bucked and rode out wave after wave of pleasure that budded in her clit and ran straight down to her toes, blasted up her spine. For endless seconds Cy came, all but sobbing with ecstasy, the she felt it- a radial stretch she realized was the crown flexing, once, twice, and then-

Cy snarled as White wrenched its ovipositor free, slapping it down on her stomach so hard that droplets of lubricant spattered her helmet. It pressed a palm onto the base, squishing it against her vulva, and White shoved, grinding the ovipositor between its hand and her cleft, both of them moaning, bumps and flanges hitting her clit, spiking her continuing climax. She felt the first egg passing through the ovip, the sensation making her jolt, and the ruby ball launched free, smacking into her shoulder. White was nonverbal, snarling and whimpering as it came, massaging its hand into the ovipositor which in turn ground into Cy; she felt every egg, every twitch and spasm of the organ until her lover was spent.

For a long time White slumped against the wall, cradling Cy as they panted. It winced as it straightened its knees, turning and sitting down heavily, dragging Cy into its heaving maw. She lolled against it, staring into the middle distance, heart hammering in her chest. White slid down the wall onto its side, arms around her. 

“Mmm?” she began, as it opened her legs, and Cy gasped as she felt the ovipositor slide over her thigh. White threw a loop around her knees, clenching them together, and she cried out in surprise as the ovipositor shoved between them, pumping and grinding, White’s breath coming in growls. She couldn’t believe it- that it had any strength left, that there was no cool down on the eggs, that it had _more_ , and it was using her body, filling her ears with sounds of its pleasure. Cy’s eyes closed and her lips curled into a smile as she felt it come again, eggs spurting, lubricant pooling over her skin. 

Finally, finally White was spent. It curled around her, grip slackening. She barely managed to get her hands to her collar, unclasp her helmet, push it clumsily free. A tendril found her, sluggishly roving up behind her ear, drawing over her forehead, clearing the hair from her face. She was too exhausted to do it herself, too exhausted to mutter out thanks. Cy’s hips and knees were still spasming; she thought her heart was going to burst. She had no energy to do anything but slump into White and breathe, and at the moment, it was all she could have wanted.

The two of them cuddled, bodies heaving, feeling the patient hum of the engine through the floor. As White’s strength returned it was starting to touch her, lick the sweat from her face, release its suckers from her skin, reposition her to lie more comfortably against it. Cy buried her face in its shoulder, as worn out and satisfied as she thought it was possible for one person to be. White tipped her face up, kissed her forehead, little mandibles playing through her hair. She lolled in its arms, at peace with the world, the two of them basking in afterglow.

It seemed like an awfully long time before the warm heaviness receded, and Cy felt ready to move. They couldn’t stay here forever; this was an engine room for God’s sake, someone was going to knock on the locked door sooner or later. 

Cy sat up. Her knees shook violently when she tried to stand, and White caught her, throwing a loop around her middle.

“I don’t think I can walk,” she said.

“Poor little human, powerless to escape me? ...Then I get you all to myself a while longer.” White pushed itself up, embraced her, rocked back and forth, ran a thumb over her cheek.

“I’ll just have to endure it.” She leaned her head back against the visor, lacing her fingers through White’s. She huffed. “You really did a number on me.”

“The first of many, if I have my way.”

“I thought you were gonna, uh, lay eggs in me there,” she said.

“Mm.” White put crablegs around her and Cy hooked her fingers over its ribs. “I should have pulled out sooner. That was reckless.”

“Why didn’t you? If I can ask.”

“You just felt so _good….”_

“Haha, no, I mean, why didn’t you lay eggs in me? I could tell you wanted to…” She tipped her head down, offering the mandibles access to the back of her neck. 

“Oh…” A tentacle wrapped around her calf, pulled her knee over White’s hip. “They would have made you feel good… but…”

“Yeah?”

“But I couldn’t please you if you didn’t trust me.”

Cy lay against it, feeling their ribcages rise and fall, rise and fall, their heartbeats evening out.

“I think I trust you implicitly.”

White whined and held her tight.


	13. Subspace in Deep Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think RUDs ended after the first round, did you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience and ongoing support! This chapter was a trial and a half to write, and I hope the wait was worth it.   
> Happy belated Valentine's Day, all.

She woke in the dark, lying stomach-down on the bunk, one arm hanging over the side. There was something hot and heavy against her back, blanketing her in warmth. 

Cy inhaled through her nostrils, closing her eyes and stretching. She felt the soreness down between her legs… and a bone-deep sense of satisfaction. 

Warm, damp tendrils were moving over her shoulder and chest, hooked around her hip. With an effort of will Cy rolled onto her side, feeling the soft flesh of the maw, the hard curves of its teeth pushing into her back. White put an arm around her, meshing their fingers in front of her chest. Tentacles extended to play over her stomach and ribs. 

“Mmm…” Cy felt a heavier tentacle circle her navel, dip down over the mound of her stomach, stray lower. They’d cleaned up before they came to bed, but any movement of her hips let her know how wet she still was. “White...”

_I’m here,_ it said.

“Mm,” Cy said again. _Tkk._

_Pleasure._

Five or six tentacles were moving over her, one curled around her knee, two lying heavy on her side, and the one playing over her cleft. 

She and White had made love in Upper Engines. In the dark, even with her impostor lying on top of her and her mind and body so satisfied, it was hard to think it had been real… and between the soaking-wet need between her legs, and the obvious interest of White’s touch, it seemed this episode wasn’t even over.

White bent its face down and curled a tendril behind her ear, clicking _desire_.

“Is this a wet dream?” She asked blearily.

“Yes.”

“What time is it?” 

“Late,” White answered. The hand was playing through her hair, catching and tugging. 

Cy arched her back into the maw.

The bunk creaked as White pushed itself up, turning her onto her back to look up at its pale shape in the dark. Gnarled talons found her cheekbones, tracing the contours of her face, sending shivers down her spine. Cy felt the hot, wet exhalation that signified White had opened its face, and a second later the searing warmth and suckers of a tentacle, curling over her jaw. It found the corner of her mouth and she smiled in response; closed her eyes as tendrils set to mapping the contours of her face. Stronger, heavier limbs were piling up on her body, pressing her into the mattress.

“Want to put something in your mouth.” White rasped. 

She opened her eyes, trying to see through the dark, feeling the closeness of the alien. “Oh… yes, okay.” 

The tentacle pressed, slipping between her lips, and Cy opened her mouth. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it pressed into her lower teeth, turned aside and ran between her cheek and molars. She laughed, surprised.

“Mm?” White intoned, pulling it back.

“Still exploring me?”

“Yes.” It didn’t need to click for her to catch its affection. Cy opened her mouth again.

She felt it feeling the muscle of her cheek and it folded over her teeth, tapping the cusps, finding the grooves. As the rest of its appendages began to play over her body Cy blinked, moved her tongue, and wasn’t prepared for the shock of arousal that ran right down to her clit when it made contact with the tentacle. 

White didn’t miss the reaction. Its tentacle curled over her tongue, pressing suckers into it. Cy squirmed, arching her back as she explored the texture, gaining insight into how White must feel when it touched her. The tentacle relaxed, thickening; Cy closed her teeth on it, hands moving to White’s shoulders, running her tongue over the tentacle as it arched into the roof of her mouth. Cy closed her lips and sucked on it, startling White so it pulled out with a light _pop_ , a string of saliva falling over her chin. Cy shook with laughter and was nuzzled in return. White pushed back, scooting further down her body.

“Mmmm. I’ve awoken in the lair of an impostor,” Cy said in mock trepidation, leaning into and caressing one of the thicker tendrils from its face.

A rumbling, mirthful growl.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Light glinted off the visor, the curling teeth. The voice came dark and rich and wild. _“Eat you.”_

Cy gasped at the wet warmth of several tentacles heaping themselves on her crotch. White’s hands slid up, gripping her hips, and a tentacle ground itself into her groin. She had barely a moment to register the change before White dipped its face against her, rolling and tugging her labia, massaging at her hardened clit.

“Ah! White!” She grabbed at it, catching the root of a tentacle, feeling its teeth in her palms. White rumbled, the vibrations of its voice running through her flesh. It continued to play with her vulva as a pair of tentacles slipped into her pussy, grinding into her walls. Cy cried out, knees shaking, shocked by this sudden, impassioned assault after the previous round’s meticulous build up. She thrust her hips forward, craving the pressure. Each tentacle moved and pumped with its own agenda and her voice shook when a third pushed into her, the trio firming into soft ridges and nubs. A sucker latched onto her clitoris, two tendrils wildly curling into her to either side.

_Satisfaction,_ White clicked as Cy gave into wordless exclamations of her pleasure. It wasn’t taking its time now; within minutes Cy felt the first climax coming. White barely slowed as the contractions started, pressing back into each tightening muscle, clicking to itself. Cy shoved a hand into her mouth; they were in quarters, everyone was going to hear her…! Thoughts of decorum fled when the fourth tentacle pressed its way in, the lot of them flexing to stretch her. Each one of them was a different firmness, shaped to a different texture, swooping and reaching and hitting every bit of her walls.

“White- _White!”_ Cy cried, digging her fingernails into the sheets. “Jesus, White! I’m going to…”

A deep, guttural grunt, possessive and smug, and it didn’t let up one bit, working into her relentlessly until she’d come twice more. Only then did White pull back, propped up on its elbows, watching her shudder and gasp. The tentacles of its face meshed together, licking slick off each other, White growling in satisfaction.

“God it’s been… a _day,_ White,” she said. “That was- number s-six? I’m going to… oh… going to go into heart failure. Give me… a minute…”

White crooned. Placed its palm over her vulva and ground the heel in gently, making her mewl. Relentless.

“En… enjoying yourself?” She asked, smiling, panting. She wiped a tear from her eye.

“Enjoying you enjoying me? _Yes._ ” It was touching her body like it owned it, and Cy, for one, was welcoming her new alien overlord. It leaned down, facial tentacles caressing her neck and face. She turned her head into it, brought a hand up, pushed a few tendrils against her lips, kissed at them and pulled them into her mouth. Shivered and moaned at the eagerness with which they met her tongue. 

She felt something heavy coiling on her stomach and reached down, found those familiar nubs, caught the ovipositor and began to rub it. White chittered in pleasure, adjusting to lie so they fit more closely together. The ovip pushed up higher, giving her better access to run her fingers through the protrusions, press into the numbs, grind knuckles into the soft plane of its tip. White was still kissing her, bodies and tongues entwined as she pleasured it, filling her ears with noises of praise. She teased at the opening of the ovipositor with the pad of her thumb and slipped it inside, White’s stomach pressing harder into her as its back arched.

Cy broke the kiss to come up for air. She was steadily pushing her thumb in as deep as it would go, drawing out, pushing in again. Thumb deep in the ovipositor, Cy closed her hand around the head, clamping down in a deep, extended squeeze. White keened. It was starting to squeeze her, its own body wriggling in greater and greater excitement. The weight… the extent of its hug, the flat of its teeth on her body, the feral sounds it was making were scaring her. More than ever Cy was aware that she was lying naked and aroused beneath an alien creature, and she was goading its lust.

Cy pulled her hand away, drew breath to say- _something-_ , and yelped. White’s great paws had clamped over her shoulders, pulling her up to her knees. 

“White…”

It turned her around and bent her forward with the same authority it had shown previously, the utter confidence in its handling of her that made her want to submit to its every whim. Tentacles re-positioned, wrapping around her waist, her neck, catching her breasts, pressing suckers into her skin. She felt that firm, heavy head of its ovip brush over her, fingerlike projections going wild against her flesh.

White bent forward, pressing its open maw over her back It paused, feeling how her pulse had skyrocketed, feeling her pant.

It waited, clicked a question. Still checking in with her, after everything.

Cy gulped, panted, nodded in the dark. Its speed and strength was freaking her out, but it was _White_ and White would not hurt her. “Shhh…”

It pulled back slightly, head cocking.

Cy licked her lips, closed her eyes, face breaking into a wild grin, and said, _Shsssshshshhshshwwwt shhwt-wt sssshwwwt wwww-_

A hand clapped over Cy’s mouth, White’s hips shoving forward into her, ovipositor jerking. 

_“Woman,”_ it snarled, “going to turn me into a _wild animal.”_

Cy was giggling too hard to answer, stress breaking, and her voice rose into a high exultation of pleasure as the ovipositor thrust into her, gliding into her stretched pussy and dragging back, flanges and nubs making Cy’s elbows collapse so she crumpled, chest and cheek pressed into the sheets. White shuddered, rasping in pleasure and gripping her tight. Its body rocked against her, wordless noises of need and enjoyment, ovipositor moving in tireless, powerful thrusts. Each one had Cy moaning and squirming, how incredible it felt inside her… and she wanted more. She couldn’t take all the ovipositor but...

“Do you… uh, think…” Cy lost her voice, shuddering as the White twisted to grind against her.

“Tell me.”

“Do you. Um. Would you like to, uh.”

A low hiss, a tentacle curling over her ear. “Tell me,” it ordered, thrusts slowing.

Cy swallowed, resisting the urge to cover her face, glad that it was dark. “Would you like to put something in my ass?”

An inhalation rattled through White’s body. It thrilled, pushing itself upright, paws on her shoulder blades. Cy grunted, whined as the ovipositor slid out of her, and then jerked when it rolled up and over her ass.

“N- not _that!_ ” She spluttered, trying to pull away. Its coils held her and she struggled in alarm. Low laughter rumbled through White. It was rubbing the ovipositor against her, slopping her with lube before it dropped back and she felt the softer, much smaller tip of a tentacle.

“...Oh… _Fucker,”_ she hissed, grinning despite herself.

__White clicked, but she could tell it was amused. Tentacles lapped at her face and she found herself forgiving the impostor as the tip started circling her, massaging in the lubricant and probing at her rim. It had been an awful long time since she’d had any stimulation there, and she couldn’t stop herself from squirming, earning a deliciously tight hold from the tentacles around her body. White’s ovipositor butted up against her clit and she whined in desire. The tentacle finally pressed just inside, making Cy flinch forward.

“Hurt?” White asked.

“No. But, umm.” It was too slick and slender to hurt, just the strange, attention-grabbing sensation of something sliding in. “Take it slower back there.”

A sound of assent. The ovipositor was rubbing itself on her vulva and Cy squeezed her thighs together, giving it something to thrust against. White crooned appreciatively, arms tightening around her while its tentacle worked, lubricating and stretching, exploring her with the same thorough attention to detail as before.

Cy groaned and pushed back into White as she felt the tentacle double over, filling her up more and more girth without stretching her rim, and beginning to rock the knot it had made back and forth. She gave a cry when she felt the ovip shift and push itself back inside, elbows giving out so she collapsed in White’s arms, given over to the dual sensation of being stuffed full front and back. 

In Cy’s mind’s eye she saw those translucent, ruby eggs piled in her lap. Erupting from White’s tip under the administrations of her hands.

_Makes their carrier feel feel peaceful and a little bit sleepy,_ White had said.

_”Cy._ ”

She was jarred out of her vision, White grinding into her, moving its ovipositor and tentacle both, cradling her in rhythmically contracting tentacles, caressing her face. 

It was going to ask her… ask her to lay eggs, and she…

_”Cy… Cy… Cy..._ ” White chanting her name with each thrust, Cy moaning and sighing.

She shut her eyes. Remembered those fingerlike projections so busy and patient, imagined the impostor butted up to her open womb, imagined the first egg squeezing in… Cy shuddered, voice shaking as the vision sent pleasure rolling through her. _Ideal partner,_ that’s what it had called her, its _ideal partner_ , and she was going to take its brood.

White was going to take care of her. They were going to live together on Polus, and take care of each other, and it was going to hold her and make love to her; she was going to keep it safe and happy and…

White was saying something, rasps and stridulations she didn’t catch; Cy just rolled her hips, angling herself to offer more, all thoughts of the ship, of Polus, of MIRA and the great void of space fuzzing over. It was just her, and White, and the intimacy that linked them.

.

.

.  
.  
.

"Cy."

Someone talking, somewhere. Warmth and pleasure. Relaxed, and satisfied.

"C'mon back, Cy."

Back where?

Something was touching her, trailing up and down her arm.

She felt... discorporated. She was in her body, but who was talking?

A hand supported the back of her neck; she slumped into it, sighing. Fingers moved in her hair. Felt wonderful.

"Cy."

It was caressing her cheek. It.

White.

White was holding her. Loving, powerful White, cradling her in its arms. _Mmmm._ And she was...

Cy tried to turn her head, but her body was heavy and warm, too relaxed to be troubled with effort.

"Hmmm..." she blinked a few times. Where was she, again...?

She heard White catch its breath, felt it sit up straighter. "Cy?"

It was holding her in a net of tentacles, her right side tucked into the maw; a jointed leg running up and down her forearm, White's hand cupping the back of her head.

Something moved in the dim light. She saw the green light of the clock reflected in a bowed, metallic plane.

Cy meant to smile, but her eyes slid shut.

She opened them again, almost managing to raise her head as she felt the hot, wet touch of tongues on her face; the glassy visor had slid back and tentacles were at her jaw and throat.

"Cy? Come on back, Cy."

_I'm right here,_ She said. Meant to say. A tentacle curled over her cheek, so warm. Cy blinked rapidly. Her head tipped, and with effort, she straightened her spine, stretching her neck.

"Cy?" Hopeful.

"Mmmyeah," she said. A dreamy smile spread across her face as she looked up at her partner. "Hey, big guy."

White let out its breath, a great gnarled hand catching her own, giving a squeeze. "There you are." It was a little hoarse.

Cy shifted, trying to sit up. She felt a heavy reluctance in her limbs, a soreness in her abdomen. Cy screwed up her eyes, trying to remember. They had... they'd been having sex, and she started thinking about...

"Eggs?" Cy asked muzzily.

"What?"

"Did you... are there…" She groped at her stomach.

"No, no," White hurried to assure her, meshing its fingers through hers.

Cy tried to process the sense of bemusement. Had she just imagined the whole thing? "Wh'appened?"

"I’m not sure. I thought you were having a good time… I think you came twice. But you got too quiet," White said. "I felt you going limp and you weren't answering me." A short laugh, a tousle of her hair. "Scared me."

"I think I..." Cy's eyelids fluttered. "Mmm..."

"Here." White shifted; she heard it fumbling with something, and White pressed a pouch into her hand, helping her raise it to her lips. "Drink some juice."

Cy didn't realize how thirsty she was until the first bead of moisture hit her tongue, and drank greedily until it was empty.

"I scared you...?" she tried to grin. "Heheheh. R... role reversal."

"Could you hear me?" White asked.

"Umm. I heard... someone... I think… I knew it was someone important. But I couldn’t think of it..." Cy drew in a deep breath, sighed, nuzzled in closer to White. Tentacles moved to support her, cradling her close. She felt White drag a blanket around them. "I think... I was thinking about... about eggs," Cy mused. "And I..." she was struggling to stay focused.

"Yeah?"

"And I think I... imagined... and you're so..." She lost her train of thought while White petted her head. "I think. Maybe I dropped."

"Dropped."

"Like, umm. Whassicalled. Subspace. I think..."

"Have you done that before?"

"No," said Cy. "Never. Just something I’ve read about."

"I thought that might be it," White said. Its fingers combed through her hair, grazed deliciously behind and ear.

Cy inhaled through her nose, wanting for nothing but to lose herself to White's touch. "You know about that?"

"Subspace? Yeah, the… altered headspace people can get into during a really intense session?”

"Mmmhmm."

"Of course I do." It sounded amused. "I was _very_ interested to learn more when I found out humans also like tying up and restraining each other. I know about all kinds of kinks." More touches, more caresses, making it hard for her to concentrate. "I thought subspace came from… Was I hurting you? Did you think I was going to… did you get scared?"

Cy shook her head and sighed.

"How do you feel?"

The answer seemed so obvious that the question was absurd. Cy giggled drunkenly. "Really good."

"Hah."

"What about you...? Did I ruin..."

"Scared me a little," White said again.

"How long..."

"Mm... I'm not sure. Wasn't sure if you were okay. Egged myself to stop the heat."

"Wh... you." Cy strained and sat herself up a bit straighter. "Hang on, you 'egged'...?"

"It's the fastest way to stop it," White said. "Fertilized eggs release a hormone that calms me down."

Now that she was thinking back, she realized it had mentioned something like that. "So you're..." Cy's lips curled and she covered her mouth with a hand, starting to snicker. "Are you _pregnant?_ "

White laughed. "Only for a bit. They'll self-terminate in a few hours when they've worked out it's a self-fertilization."

"Are you craving pickles?"

"Later. But you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I feel... amazing. Didn't mean to scare you..."

"Do you remember what happened?"

Cy yawned, thinking back. “Hmm… I think… I was thinking, umm.” Cy licked her lips. She felt some last vestige of discretion, urging her not to admit it out loud- what did it say about her that she’d fantasize of such things? And what if White took her admission as _per_ mission for next time, but she wasn’t ready? She swallowed, shook her head. Irrational worries from an irrational culture. “I started thinking about your eggs, how beautiful they are in the light, and how good they look when you come.”

A short, surprised laugh. “Thank you?”

“And I was thinking about how those… thingies on the end of your dick felt, opening me up, and how. Mm. How you’d feel coming inside me.”

White held her quietly. Its crableg trailed scritches down her arm, so pleasant she thought she might drift away again. "You were thinking about taking my eggs? Did you scare yourself?"

Cy's brows knit as she tried to summon a multifaceted idea into the airy palace she was relaxing in. She cleared her throat. "Umm. No. At the time it was. Uh. Kind of the hottest thing I could think of."

White was holding perfectly still and keeping quiet like someone trying not to scare away a bunny. Cy continued, "I'm still worried about what would happen but, uh."

"The idea doesn't disgust you?" White asked quietly. Cautious and incredulous.

"What? No, no it's never... White..." She lifted a hand to trail over its visor. "That's never been it." Cy pushed an arm clumsily around White's ribs. "When is it going to get through that hard helmet that your body doesn't bother me."

A tentacle curled over her wrist behind its back.

"We can talk about it more later," White said. There was a warmth, affection and a gentleness in its tone.

"Mmm. Yeah."

"When we're both clear-headed."

"Mmhmm."

“When I haven’t fucked you into cloud-cuckoo land.”

Cy snickered.

She rested against it, floating on bliss, feeling the inner workings of its body.

“White?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

A short laugh, that sounded touched, and terrified, and thrilled. “Finally catching up to me, huh?”

Cy snuggled closer, eyelids fluttering, just feeling the soft, powerful shape of White’s body. 

"Was there..." White sounded sheepish, but went on, "was there anything else I did that you liked?"  
Cy chuckled, all too happy to praise her impostor.

“Uhh… You said you wanted me to, uh, feel your strength? And I did. Wow. I know you said you liked your partner to struggle, but the way you just… handled me? Opened my legs and turned me over? Like you knew exactly what you wanted and were going to take it. God, that was hot.”

White gave her a squeeze.

“And you touched me like… like you _really_ liked whatever you found. Umm. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt… Like _I_ was that wonderful? Kind of embarrassed to say that out loud. But you made me feel like an exotic specimen you couldn’t have been more pleased to get your hands on.”

“Accurate.”

Cy laughed, and White laughed with her. “And you’ve got so many tentacles, I don’t know how you manage to do so many things at once, I could barely keep up. Uh… I kind of feel like I wasn’t doing enough for you, I can’t umm.” She chuckled. “I can’t compete with you. In the stimulation department.”

Another affectionate nuzzle and White’s warm chuckles. _“Please,_ I’ve been desperate to reduce you to a mewling puddle for months. The sound your pleasure was the most stimulating thing I could have hoped for.” A tendril curled around her ear. “You’re so responsive. Your voice, and your body. I want to find everything you enjoy and drive you out of your mind.”

“You just _did!_ ”

“Oh, no,” White said. “I know there’s much more to discover. But if your expletives get any more colorful, dear girl,” its voice grew grave, “I’m going to have to tell the church.”

“Oh my _fucking God._ ”

An admonishing tap to her lips. “There, you see?”

“I didn’t even think of that. Is this in the Bible…? Did I… did I pull you in with a fishhook? Will I put you on a leash for my daughters?”

White snickered. “That’s two different monsters, my love.”

“What am I going to tell the priest… when did I become a… a… a _monsterfucker._ ”

White’s laughter shook them both. It pulled her tighter against it. “I have never in my whole life been happier to call myself a ‘monster.’” White eased back onto the bunk, squishing itself up against the wall to make room for them both. Her hand trailed over White’s body, feeling its teeth, its tentacles, the soft flesh inside the maw. Appendages moving to present more for her to touch, offer everything for her hand to explore.

At length Cy blinked, coming more awake. “God, I’m starving,” she said.

White sat up. “Oh,” it said, realizing. It looked down at her. “I’m a poor mate, Cy. I didn’t think to bring a food offering.”

She laughed. “Is that a thing?”

“Sometimes.” White caught her in a hug and pulled itself back together. “Let’s shower and get something to eat.”

Cy hummed and leaned against White for a moment as she got her balance. She was sore in the most satisfying way imaginable. “Is the standard impostor food offering the haunch off a gazelle?”

“In this day and age? I’d have brought you some Cheetos.”


	14. The Lance

Cy’s elevated state of mind carried her all through the next day and the morning after that, gaining her raised eyebrows from some and knowing smirks from others. She drifted along on her private spaceship of bliss. Cy was in too good a mood to be bothered, and soon they were all swept up in the rush and bustle of preparing for landing. 

Cargo they’d neglected for months had to be organized and secured, personal belongings packed and stowed, and the whole ship cleaned. With none of them having tracked a speck of dirt in over the past eight months there wasn’t much need to sweep, but they’d all produced plenty of dust. White was in its element, heaving crates and hauling luggage, locating misplaced items with the skill of an experienced ferryman who happened to have superhuman strength and spend a lot of down time prowling around every corner of the ship. 

“MIRA is still processing my transfer request,” it told Cy, the day before they would be reaching the station. “They’re waiting on RedCap’s assessment of the station. 

Cy wrung her hands. “If they don’t let you transfer, I could...” 

“No, you couldn’t,” it cut her off. “MIRA would ruin your career and bankrupt you. I spoke with Red, he’s going to say what he thinks they need to hear to get me re-stationed. It’s very likely,” White assured her. “There will only be three of the expected nine passengers for the return trip, Red and Blue can manage.” 

“What does he think they’ll want to hear?” 

“That I’m a strong, trusted member of the team whose presence will set everyone’s mind at ease. MIRA has a history of bending to mass protestations; if Red tells them the entire team will back out and head home now, that’s going to be quite a blow.” 

Cy peeked at an old label. “Have you ever been away from Red before?” She thought back to her dressing-down. Red had given her the impression that he trusted White completely, but White had always been under his supervision. 

“We talked about that. He said he feels like he’s sending his kid to college, and that it’s about goddamn time I moved out and got a job, and he’s looking forward to being able to sleep nights without me yowling and scurrying through the vents, giving everybody hard-ons.” 

Cy burst out laughing. “That’s exactly what he said, too, wasn’t it?” 

“Pretty much exactly.” White gave a fond smile. “Red gets cute when he’s sentimental. All gruff and vulgar.” 

“He is kind of like your dad, huh,” Cy mused. 

“I wouldn’t say dad. A mentor, though, certainly. I think teaching his monster to be a person gave Red purpose and closure after- we met. With me gone...” White went quiet, posture slumping, expression turning morose. “...I think he might get a cat.” 

“Pfffft.” Cy gave its shoulder a shove. “So... I was thinking. Red, er, rehabilitating you... and Black just wanting to learn about impostors, and us, now. Impostors getting on human ships is pretty recent, right?” 

“As far as I know. And I don’t know much more than you do,” White reminded her. 

“So it’s possible that the conflict is just ignorance on both sides. Maybe if we- if people understood that impostors weren’t evil, they could communicate that instead of hurting anyone, it _could_ just keep playing the human crewmate it had been passing for. Just stay on the ship, cooperate and coexist. Like you.” 

White considered her. 

“If the only reason impostors are attacking people is that they like working together on a goal, and their first goal is sabotaging missions, and they’re offered something better...?” 

It didn’t say anything, so Cy continued. 

“And if that got to be widespread and we had humans and impostors working together peacefully for a while, we could... I don’t know. You impostors could actually do your own thing? Figure out what you wanted independent of your breeders or MIRA? Like- I don’t know. Raise your own kids, teach them your own values.” 

Cy looked down at the ground. Pursed her lips. “I’m sorry. Saying it out loud, I’m hearing it’s kind of a pipe dream.” 

“Human authorities do have a history of killing off, enslaving or otherwise exploiting people who are different,” White said, not unkindly. 

“Ugh.” All at once she felt stupid. “Sorry.” 

White put an arm around her. “Please don’t apologize for hoping for better worlds. You described a beautiful future. And a day doesn’t pass that I’m not happy to have met humans who see the violence between us and think about ending it nonviolently.” White shifted a bin that weighed more than Cy did. “But... humans would have to know that impostors are there, if they wanted to send the message that coexistence was an option. It would mean telling everyone about impostors. Telling everyone that alien creatures could get into their ships and mimic their friends and family to kill them.” 

“You think they’d lure the impostors out of hiding and...?” 

White shook its head. “That? I could live with that, if the alternative was a dead crew. But it would sow the panic and hysteria Red’s always warning us about. Just having the possibility of an infiltration confirmed would get innocent people airlocked.” 

Cy swallowed. “If there was enough education...” 

“Impostors have killed hundreds of humans, and there are thousands more who’ve lost a loved one to impostors,” White pointed out. “Even if they knew for certain impostors would stop attacking, how many captains are going to take on the added burden of hosting an alien assassin?” 

“It would stop _more_ people from becoming victims.” 

“Ideally, yes. But, even if the arrangement was made, even if we could guarantee that crews would accept impostor team members and said team members would be peaceful...not all of my kind would take the offer. We-” White hesitated, and looked away from Cy, lowering its voice. 

“It’s not coming from a place of malice, but tricking and hunting humans is... it was- impostors see it like a sport, or a game. It can be... a lot of fun, if you’re good at it.” 

Cy felt something cold seeping through her veins as she recognized that White was speaking from experience. It glanced down at her, noticing her body language. Turned away, busied itself with labor. “I’m afraid of humans because they can decide to kill me, and I would let them rather than kill one in self-defense. But I don’t hold that against them. People who want to kill the thing that could kill them have- have a really solid motive.” 

Cy wanted to say something. She wanted to comfort White, and she also wanted White to say something comforting to her, as she processed what it was describing. “You didn’t...” 

“I can’t change the past,” it cut her off. “If I thought I could create the future you described, I would. But my kind has earned the airlock, and our victims aren’t going to just let that go even _if_ every impostor was just misguided and harmless, and plenty of them aren’t.” 

A moment of silence while that sunk in. White looked down at its hands on the crate. “You keep saying you aren’t afraid of me. You deserve to know what it is you’re forgiving.” 

Anxiety seeped through Cy. She licked her lips, swallowed. “Yeah…?”

While looked back, angled itself so its back was to the closed doors of the storage bay. It pulled back its shoulders, chest and stomach prominent, and as it leaned back the skin parted across its midriff like a mouth. 

Cy leaned forward, eyes wide, as tentacles and jointed legs moved out of the way, and she remembered that survivor’s sketch.

The wad of tissue was almost pretty, mottled liver and pink, glistening damp and in the shape of a rosebud. It was nourished with fat veins and, as Cy watched, the surrounding flesh pulled back, allowing it to move, pivoting and rotating in place. White turned it to face forward and a tendril pushed down on the tapered end, exposing the tip of a jet-black skewer, grooved and serrated.

“Once an impostor’s decided to kill someone,” White said dispassionately, “It only takes a few seconds. Through the heart or the skull and they die instantly. A miss…” It pressed the soft sheath further back, showing jagged edges like the head of a hunter’s arrow. “...and it gets pulled back, causing terminal blood loss.” It flexed a hand, showing off those talons that had run so delicately through Cy’s hair. “We don’t need a dedicated weapon to kill someone, but this gets the job done fast.”

An icy sensation was flowing through Cy, numbing her fingertips, knotting her insides and making her head swim.

“Most kills are opportunistic, just someone alone with an impostor in a secluded place. Sometimes they won’t take the chance, let someone think they’re safe to be around. They- I- get… _got_ a rush, from that. From the trick, from getting someone to trust you right up until the moment you get them. It’s not malicious but it is… deep-seated. If I had to guess, I’d say our makers bred it into us, in place of direct hostility.”

“How many,” Cy asked softly.

White didn’t answer immediately. “Do you really want to know?”

She thought back to that first conversation, to White showing her parts of itself, when she’d asked about its lance. _’That, I’m not going to show you. Lances are for killing, and I’m happy to say I’ve kept mine put away for a very long time.’_

White’s actions were in the past. “...No.”

The tendril released its grip and White’s insides moved, skin smoothing shut, hiding the lance once more. It turned away, and for the first time, Cy read in its body language something like shame.

An hour passed as they worked without speaking, the atmosphere tense. Cy caught herself releasing a sigh of relief when Orange and Purple joined them, Orange primed and ready tales of pest infestations he’d seen while unloading other ships. 

“You okay?” Purple asked. She was only four or five inches taller than Cy, but as she worked Cy noted the awkward girl was much stronger than Cy was. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You’re usually either really focused when you work or you’re chatty.” Purple cocked her head. “You look distracted, in a bad way.” 

“Oh...” Cy touched her visor. “Just pre-planet jitters, I guess.” Wanting to think of anything but White for the moment, she looked around the bay and said, honestly, “I’m going to miss this place.” 

Purple nodded. Smiled. “It feels like my first true home.” 

“Aw, Purple,” she said. Cy looked around the cramped space, the low ceiling and glaring lights. “I think we’ll fall in love with Polus together.” Cy was going to learn the station with the same wide-eyed enthusiasm she’d brought to the Skeld, and as she did she vowed she’d get to know her colleagues better, too. She continued to talk with Purple, discussing what they expected of the planet, what they’d do first, what they were most eager to try. She asked Purple about her sheltered childhood, why she’d come to space, but Purple didn’t seem very interested in her own experiences, giving only vague details. She asked instead about Cy’s home town, her family, her background. Whether her love of knitting and llamas were connected. Cy was happy to oblige, and decided she was going to get Purple enough personal stories about herself on Polus that she didn’t feel the need to change the subject ever again.

All remained in the cafeteria after dinner for Red’s briefing. He was looking shiny, captain’s reds buffed and face clean-shaven for the first time in eight months. Needing the physical reassurance, Cy clung to White’s arm as he told them how the next 24 hours would go.

“There’s a rumor going around that something sordid’s happened on Polus,” RedCap began, cutting straight to it. “I can confirm that- yes. An incident has reduced the crew and damaged the station.”

Lime nodded with an expression so knowing that Cy expected to see the knowledge of all mankind come rupturing out of his forehead. When he caught her eye, he mimed a stab.

“I shouldn’t have to remind you,” Red went on, and Lime dropped his hand. “That you’ve all signed NDAs in regards to information that might prove damaging to the company. HQ has made the details of this incident classified until I’ve had a chance to assess the situation and file my report. 

“Therefore, I shall be leading a small scouting team to the station after landing, and the rest of you shall sit tight. This is, in all likelihood, a lot of excessive caution on our part, but you all know how MIRA is with anything that might increase the premiums on their insurance.” He tugged at his suit and the audience chuckled. “Apologies, Senior Science Officer, I can’t pass you the mantle of authority just yet.” 

Green laughed. “Alas.”

“You’ve all lived happy as clams on the Skeld this long, you can wait another day or so to keep the honchos happy back on Earth. While we’re over there, Blue shall be acting captain. I expect every one of you to show her the respect you’ve shown me, and keep in mind who flew your sorry asses here and who’ll be getting you back home at the end of your contracts.”

Murmurs, nods, encouraging smiles at the older woman who’d made herself a bit of a mother to all of them.

“That’s it for the basics,” RedCap said. For a man whose job gave him nothing but time, he favored admirably short briefings. “We’ll be meeting again once my inspection is complete and MIRA has assessed our next course of action. White, Black, please come with me; the rest of you: dismissed.”

Everyone started to murmur and stand, but Lime was up like a spring-loaded weasel. “Now, hold on! You’re taking Black and White to the station?”

“That’s correct,” said Red, donning his ‘talking-to-Lime’ smile. “Fewer eyes, fewer NDAs, fewer rumors, everyone’s happier.”

“You’re gonna check it out?” Cy asked White, hugging its arm.

“Who else?” White replied. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, my love, but-” and it flexed, biceps popping even though its ‘suit,’ making her, Brown, Yellow and Pink burst out laughing.

Lime was still on it. “Of course, sure, but if you only need two… shouldn’t you take someone, oh…”

“Bigger and taller?” Black’s glower was even more potent than usual.

Lime clapped a hand to Black’s shoulder, making him roll his eyes and underscoring the tremendous disparity of height between the two men. “No offense to you, of course, Black! But Cap, if you’re expecting trouble, White and I are surely your best men for the job?”

“I assure you I am _not_ expecting trouble,” Red said amiably. “A reactor meltdown, a blown up engine, a loss of pressure to quarters. White and Black will be more than adequate for this task.”

“Alright, alright, but just _in theory..._ ”

RedCap headed out, Black walking at his elbow, Lime trailing them, still talking.

White gave Cy’s helmet a tap. “I’ll see you before I head out,” it promised, and headed after the trio.

Cy’s shoulders slumped.

“Hey, Cy!”

She looked up to see Pink waving her over. “We were just gonna go clean the fatberg out of sewage. You want to tag along? It’s going to be jaw-dropping disgusting.”

Cy looked at him, and Purple hanging at his shoulder. She smiled.

“I’d like nothing better.”

Cy had showered twice and retired to bed by the time White’s knock came. When she let it in she caught how it hesitated, letting her initiate their hug. She felt its palpable relief when she did so, White leaning back to lift her up onto her toes. Cy sighed. It seemed it was just going to take some time for White to believe how, in spite of everything, she trusted it.

White put her down and she pulled it to the bed. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

White sat against the wall, pulling her into it like a backrest. “Red says it’s most likely the three on Polus are survivors of an impostor attack.”

“Right.” She tugged its great, strong arms around her.

“Best case scenario… the danger’s passed. Red will remind them to keep what they witnessed quiet under MIRA rules, minimize contact with your crew to stop them sharing anything with us, we clean up Polus as best we can and things proceed as normal, with video orientation instead of an in-person one.

“Worst case- the ‘survivors’ are impostors who’ve, for some reason, been asked to stay put after their work is done. We’ll provide a cover story as to why we were expecting to meet people on Polus but, oh, hmm, turns out no one was there all along. Then hide the evidence and move onto the station as planned, with a video orientation.”

“What will you do with the impostors?”

“What needs to be done to keep this crew safe.”

Cy nodded slowly. Saw in her mind’s eye that lethal lance.

“What if you can’t hide the evidence? You… Red won’t be on Polus to enforce the no-impostor-talk rule.”

“Even if they fish an impostor body out of the toilets, nobody is going to get accused and murdered without a catalyst turning things desperate. We’ve been together eight months. We’re the only friends and family we’ve got, we’re not going to ice someone unprovoked. And if that catalyst is another impostor who comes to Polus…? I will deal with it before one of mine is hurt.”

A vein of iron was laced through its last words. Cy inhaled slowly, felt the weight of its arms, the solidity of its chest, and thought she was in the safest place on the Skeld. 

“I’m more scared that the three survivors learned enough impostor tells to recognize you, and try to report you immediately.”

“That’s why only Black and me will be tagging along.”

Cy grimaced, unhappy in her worry. “Not Lime, huh?”

“Hah. _Not_ Lime, despite his efforts. You should have seen him, Cy. Like a terrier at the gates.”

She snorted. “This might be his one chance to be the big damn hero he was born to be, and Red gave it to one of the nerds.”

“Yeah, we noticed. RedCap finally got him to back off by reframing it as me going to protect him and Black, and Lime staying behind as ‘Blue’s muscle.’”

“Oh, I bet he liked that.”

“Apologies for the strutting you’ll be subject to as he protects our defenseless women.”

“Maybe he’ll annoy me enough I won’t be fretting over you the whole time,” she said. “If they’re impostors- or even just hostile humans, it’ll be three-on-three. Now, I _know_ you’re a big moose, but a gal can worry.”

White chuckled appreciatively, giving her a squeeze. “We’ll each be carrying a PEP.”

“A…”

“Electromagnetic laser gun. Won’t pierce any hulls, but can lay someone out with pain and paralysis without any lasting damage. But please, don’t worry!” With a ripple, White’s maw opened, and its ribs curled over her, tentacles looping like seat-belts. Then it froze, remembering what it had revealed to her in that maw, relaxing only when Cy pressed forward anyway. “You should be happy for me. If anything happens, I’ll get to be the boyfriend who fucks up the threat to his girl.”

“Hah! You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Getting to be my white knight?”

“Very much, how else could I prove to you my worthiness and win my lady’s heart after I forgot the Cheetos? But Cy, again. We’re not expecting anything tomorrow. Red wasn’t lying about it being a busted reactor. Shit happens and MIRA’s equipment is famously outdated.”

“Mmm.” She settled back. A joined leg hooked around her and she rested her elbow on it. “So…”

“Yes?”

“You and Red know that Black knows, and you’re using him for this mission because you trust him to cover for you.”

“Yes…” White sounded suddenly guarded.

“Do you have any plans of actually talking to the man?”

White was quiet.

“You still don’t trust him?”

“I trust _him._ I don’t trust that no one will ever get their hands on his research.”

“There are ways to give Black some closure without putting yourself in danger, White.”

At length White nodded. “I’ll consider it.

“And maybe… you and Black… and Red and me… maybe we can come up with something to edge that future I described just a micrometer closer?”

White huffed, affectionate. “Well, we’ll certainly have a lot of time to brainstorm.”

“I hope so.”

“Try not to worry so much,” White said. “Let’s just enjoy each other in this moment.”

“Mm.” She knew it was in White’s nature to live in the now, though the suggestion felt ominous. “Alright, I’ll try. You want to watch something?”

“Tonight, I’d rather talk.”

“Okay,” she said. “About anything in particular?”

“We’re always talking about me,” White said. “I want to hear more about you, before you came to space.” White played with her hair. “What is it that made my sweet girl first turn her eyes to heaven?”

“Oh, hah. That’s a while back.” Cy closed her eyes, enjoyed the feel of its fingers. “Umm. I always wanted to be an astronaut, or a paleontologist. ‘Rocket to heaven or dig to hell,’ my mom would say.” Cy grinned, remembering how she’d come to grown and roll her eyes whenever her mother used the line on yet another new person. “I think I always thought I was just sort of… passive. Kind of lazy, content to just get things done? I knew space academy was impossibly challenging, and paleontology had way more students than positions, so it’d be very competitive. And both were expensive. Nobody ever told me to my face, that I wasn’t good enough? But I just sort of understood that, from early on.”

Cy wondered what White was thinking as she spoke; her typical audience would have high school pressures, career aspirations, a human childhood and college application forms in their past, and White had a hive, a handful of spaceships and the Internet. 

She cleared her throat. “I didn’t want to go to college at all, because I thought I’d just be going into debt for a degree that never paid it off, and I couldn’t really find something that was both well-paying and made me happy. Like, uh… I don’t think you can understand this, but everything we do on the Skeld is really important? No matter how many times you fix the same bit of wiring, you know, you just _kept someone alive._ A lot of jobs on Earth aren’t like that. You feel like someone’s paying you to give them your time, because whatever job you’re doing is just… an excuse to receive payment for the time.” Cy laughed. “I uh- I had a lot of opinions about wages and labor, back then. Worked a couple different jobs, at the same time, after high school… and just tried to enjoy myself with what I could save up, but I’d accepted that my life would be hourly wages for junk work.”

She played with the joints of a rib, rubbing her thumb over the ridges. “I used to love to go camping and trekking. And that year, even though I was a young woman, and shorter than most people, and inexperienced, I decided I was going to go solo trekking. Just, carry everything I needed on my back and walk away from civilization for a few days.” Cy smiled, remembering the determination she had felt. “I thought, ‘I always think that adventures and vacations aren’t things that happen to me, but I have my own money, and I will make it happen!’”

“That’s the officer I know,” White said, and she grinned.

“Like I said, I was really worried, because I’d be in a remote area and I’ve never been very strong or fit. But I had splurged on some ultralight gear- read about a million blogs about it, spent hours choosing what to buy- loaded up with trail-mix, and hiked an entire day into the mountains.” Cy sighed, thinking of the scent of pines, the crunch of gravel. “After the first six hours I stopped passing other hikers, and I was just- all alone. Like it was just me and the earth, and this path, and everyone who’d ever walked it. When I made camp- it was cold but I wasn’t allowed to light a fire, so my eyes adjusted with the night, and the stars were just- mmff. Perfect. Like salt spilled on black velvet, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t brought a telescope! I didn’t even pitch my tent, I went to sleep under the sky, thinking about space and ancient bones deep under the earth.” Cy was a little self conscious, hearing herself wax poetic, but she closed her eyes and felt that moment again, that sense of connection that had radiated out of her like a web. 

“The next day, I was _so sore._ Shoulders locked up, stiff neck, hip hurting from lying on the ground. You cannot imagine the day-after pain of pushing yourself way too hard on the first day of your first adventure. My hands were so frigid I seriously considered building a fire and letting the cops come arrest me so I could be warm and carried home.”

White laughed at the sudden turn of the story. 

“I ate a cold breakfast, got hydrated, got everything packed up nice, and hit the road.”

Cy went quiet, waiting for White to prompt her.

“And then?”

“And then I broke my fucking arm.”

It spluttered in surprise. “Here!” it said, touching her. “ _That’s_ what happened.”

“How did- aaaah, found that, huh?” 

“I did. How did you break it?”

“I was always so over cautious and scared of heights, It was embarrassing! None of my friends ever were. So, since I was spiting all my my own doubts, I thought I’d do some bouldering down a scree slope and overbalanced with my backpack on. Threw my arm out like you’re not supposed to.”

Whine made a low noise of sympathy, curling a tentacle around the site of the break.

“So there I was, weighed down with thirty kilos of essential gear, eight hours from the last person I’d seen, with a crick in my neck, and my damn arm was broken.”

“Christ. What did you do?”

“I bound the arm up with some duct tape- one of those ‘just in case’ things you always have, even though the guides tell you to bring less than you think you’ll need? -and contemplated just waiting… because it hurt. I had some aspirin, and that was about it. But I hadn’t seen anyone, or signs of anyone, and I didn’t have signal, and so I just… started walking.”

“No signal fire?”

“I didn’t have anything to start one! I’d known fires were illegal, so I hadn’t checked the lighter in my emergency kit, and all the fluid had evaporated.”

“God. That sounds so terrible.”

“Yeah, it hurt so bad I think I got high on it. Just… mechanical, one step after another. Telling myself I could lie down and black out after the _next_ ridge. Stop and take another aspirin- I only had six altogether, you know, one of those little purse tubes, because I was cheap- just past the _next_ curve. And I was so focused, I lost the path and had to double back around.”

White emitted a noise of sympathy, squeezing her.

Cy nuzzled it, amused to have her big monster so stressed at a story. “Anyway, I had a hell of a long time to think. I thought of ditching all my gear, but was so scared of ending up spending another night there, and it raining, that I didn’t dare… thought about just sitting down and waiting for rescue every thirty seconds. But I knew I was already doing the one thing that was getting me closer to help, by walking. And that that would have to be enough, and that I was strong enough for that. And… then I started thinking about how I’d always known I wasn’t competitive enough or smart or hard-working enough to go to space. And I thought. You know what? There are mediocre people everywhere. If I can walk myself home with a broken arm, I can get a degree. And another, and I can get into the program, and I can go to space. Step by step, and fuck the doubts and despair. And I’d see those stars up close.” Cy leaned into White, remembering. “You tell yourself that again and again with the endorphins and adrenaline frying your brain, and it’s hard to just shrug it off when you get home. I started researching how to apply to programs from my hospital bed.” 

White released a long, low hiss, and clutched her tight, running finger tips over her arm like it would hurt it. “And you’ve been a bad-ass ever since.”

“What? No!” said Cy, laughing. “I’ve been just as passive and languid as I always was. I’m- pretty easily contented, I’d say. Been more than happy to clean the same O2 filter and eat the same protein shakes every day for eight months. But when it matters? When I really want something? Yeah. I’ve never lost that determination, where it matters.”

“Sounds pretty bad ass to me,” White insisted, and she reached a hand up to caress the edge of its visor. 

“I guess you’d know, mm?” Cy closed her eyes. “Be careful, tomorrow?”

“I promise.” It gripped her hand. “I’ll get back to you in one piece and unaccused.”

They lay down, and White killed the lights. 

A tentacle plucked at Cy’s waistband. “You want something to remember me by for tomorrow?”

She snickered, catching the naughty appendage. “Naw. Just want to be close to you tonight.”

“Mmm.” White spread its tentacles over her side. “Sounds pretty good to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have questions (or requests!) please don't hesitate to hit me up https://twitter.com/cornsnut
> 
> And if you're a cool grown up who likes fucking impostors, come join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/73GkF4c5xC


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